CONNECTIVITY-ORIENTED URBAN PROJECTS

Ernesto Philibert Petit

CONNECTIVITY-ORIENTED URBAN PROJECTS

Proefschrift

ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor

aan de Technische Universiteit Delft,
op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. dr. ir. J.T. Fokkema,
voorzitter van het College voor Promoties,
in het openbaar te verdedigen
op maandag 19 juni 2006 om 10:00 uur

door
Ernesto PHILIBERT PETIT
architect, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Master in Architectuur, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
geboren te Mexico Stad, Mexico.
Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promotor:
Prof. dr. P. Drewe

Samenstelling promotiecommissie:

Rector Magnificus Voorzitter

Prof. dr. P. Drewe Technische Universiteit Delft, promotor
Dr. E.D. Hulsbergen Technische Universiteit Delft, toegevoegd promotor
Prof. Dr. N. A. Salingaros University of Texas at San Antonio
Prof. Dr. P. Petsimeris Université Paris 1
Prof. ir. C. A.J. Duijvestein Technische Universiteit Delft
Prof. ir. F. M.J. Houben Technische Universiteit Delft
Prof. dipl.ing. H.J. Rosemann Technische Universiteit Delft
Contents

Connectivity-Oriented Urban Projects

Ernesto Philibert Petit

• Acknowledgements

• Summary

1 Introduction
1. The structure of this thesis / Research process
2. Fragmentation as a problem statement
3. Connective urban projects
4. Connection as a strategy
5. The city as a network
6. Querétaro
7. A network of connective urban projects
8. Connectivity strategies for the urban system
9. Design and application of a tool for observation and assessment of transversal connectivity
10. Propositions within this thesis

Theoretical Cycle
2 Fragmentation as a problem statement
• Analysis
1. Introduction
2. Urban Ergonomics, an integrated study of structure and patterns
3. Fragmented structures and patterns: fragmented city
4. The splintered city at the beginning of the 21st Century
5. Fragmentation, a problem statement
6. Mobility as an approach to fragmentation
7. Conclusions

3 Connective Urban Projects

• Design
1. Introduction
2. What are urban projects
3. Why urban projects
4. Where to locate urban projects
5. Who are the actors that play in urban projects
6. Dynamic scales and transversal projects
6.1 Transversal urban projects
6.2 Transversal urban projects for Mexico Avenue

Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 7. Transversal connections and connected scales
7.1 The concept of connected scales
7.2 The concept of transversal connection
8. Transversal-connectivity urban projects
9. Conclusions

4 Connectivity as a strategy
• Strategy
1. Connectivity
2. Connectivity as a strategy
3. Connecting theories and practices in urbanism
4. Strategic charters for connectivity
5. Perspectives of connectivity
6. Conclusions: connection in this thesis

5 The City as a Network

• Evaluation
1. Introduction
2. From the zone to the network
What kind of problem a city is?
Three mindscapes
Properties of complex systems and principles for their research and intervention
3. Cities as networks
What kind of network a city is?
Social networks, the pattern of a network structure
4. Principles of the urban network
5. Complex networks’ rules of coherence
6. Network concepts for observation and assessment
7. Conclusions

Empirical Cycle
6 Querétaro
• Analysis
1. Introduction to the empirical setting
2. Santiago de Querétaro as a Node
3. Analysis of fragmentation in the City of Querétaro
4. Spatial planning in Querétaro
5. Sprawl and the economic viability of Querétaro
6. A final remark on the analysis of Querétaro

7 A Network of Connective Urban Projects

• Design
1. Introduction
2. Location
3. Networked programs
The meaning of connectivity-oriented
Aims linked to programs

Contents
 Connected scales
Playing with rules of coherence
4. Networked projects
Projects at the interpersonal scale, 3-10m
Projects at the building scale, 10-30m
Projects at the block scale, 30-100m
Project at the neighborhood scale, 100-300m
5. Conclusions

8 Connectivity strategies for the urban system

• Strategy
1. Introduction
2. Problems identified as obstacles to the connectivity of the urban system
3. Strategies for supporting connectivity-oriented projects
3.1 Preservation strategies
3.2 Accessibility strategies
3.3 Viability strategies
3.4 Identity strategies
3.5 Complexity strategies
4. Conclusions

9 Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of

Transversal Connectivity
• Evaluation
1. Introduction
2. Network concepts applied to observation of transversal connectivity
3. A model for observation and assessment of transversal connectivity
4. Transversal connectivity assessed before and after interventions
5. Cases of urban interventions assessed with the model
5.1 Brief general description of the areas studied
5.2 Control area: Centro Histórico
5.3 Study case 1: Urban stitch
5.4 Study case 2: Retail parking
5.5 Study case 3: Industrial brownfield
5.6 Study case 4: Gated community
5.7 Study case 5: Shopping mall
6. Conclusions

Chapter 10
• Conclusions and perspectives

• References

Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 I think that going through a PhD research is mostly about going through a per-
sonal journey within oneself, trying hard to “think what nobody else has thought”
while “seeing what everybody can see”, and I have to say that in my personal jour-
ney, I always felt accompanied. Exceptional persons and excellent institutions
have taken part in it, and to them I sincerely want to express herein these…

Acknowledgements

To the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Querétaro, for all the research time I have been let to take
in these five years, and especially to Irma de la Torre who was able to understand my dream and so
generous to support it.
To Marisa Carmona, who suddenly appeared in my journey (like a fairy godmother) inviting me into
the external doctorate program in TU Delft and to the Alfa-Ibis network; she has always been such a
hospitable friend.
To Prof. Paul Drewe, my excellent supervisor, for trustfully accepting me as a candidate with my initial
proposal and for being always very opportune, “coaching from the sideline”.
To the TU Delft and to the Bouwkunde, the Faculty of Architecture, for accepting me in the external
doctorate program.
To my fellow members of the Studio Network City, especially Edward Hulsbergen, who acted and
helped so much as adjunct supervisor; Ana María Fernández-Maldonado, always a great support and
example; Ina Klaasen, of valuable help as editor, Jonna Klumpenaar for the DTP, and Iwan Kriens, my
office-mate in Bouwkunde.
To all my fellow participants of the Alfa – Ibis group, that has been very significant to me in the last
years and especially to Andrea Peresthu, Cecilia Marengo and Marcela Soto, my good friends and close
companions in this journey.
To the Faculty of Architecture of the TU Delft, Bouwkunde, the Dean Hans Beunderman, the academic
staff and all the supportive staff, especially in the ninth floor.
To Prof. Nikos Salingaros for all the theoretical underpinning and the triggering phrase: “why don’t
you start by smaller projects?”; to Prof. Francine Houben for the kind invitation to the Biennial which
introduced me in the study of the spaces of mobility; to Prof. Petros Petsimeris, for the illustrative dis-
cussions in the early stage of the research; to Prof. Jürgen Rosemann for the good example of wisdom
and to Prof. Kees Duijvestein for accepting to be part of my Committee.
To Theresia Twickler, Theda Olsder and Veronique van der Varst from CICAT, for all the patience and
help in my stays in Delft and abroad.
To my academic colleagues at the Tecnológico de Monterrey for their support.
To my students at the Tecnológico de Monterrey for their important roles in the research process, espe-
cially to Nuria Hernández.
To Fernando Tovar and Laura Macías for their contribution with the GIS model.
To my family and friends for all their support.
To my parents for inspiring the dream.
To my daughters Ana, María and Fernanda and my son, Ernesto for the time I could not devote to them
while working on the research, but also for making this journey even more intense by giving me the
privilege of sharing with every one of them an unforgettable summer.
To Gabriela my wife, for her generosity in backing-up my (body and mind) absences, and for under-
standing my obsession with the research, but more than anything for her love.

Acknowledgements 9
 Summary

Connectivity-Oriented Urban Projects

Ernesto Philibert Petit
Connectivity-Oriented Urban Projects is about connections in the built environment. Networked con-
nections for the mobility of people at the smallest scale of the urban realm: the pedestrian scale. Based
on the assumption that physical structures have a direct effect on patterns of social organization and
behavior and vice versa, this research represents an instrumental approach to the problem of fragmen-
tation in the city, by proposing concrete actions to gain connectivity, in the form of urban projects:
connectivity-oriented urban projects.

The method of investigation is research by design, with the induction of potential solutions to the
problem of fragmentation in the urban tissues in the form of briefs and hypothetical design of urban
projects. Briefs and designs presented in this thesis are related to a research design integrated by a
theoretical cycle and an empirical cycle. In each one of these cycles, the phases of analysis, design,
strategy and evaluation are present, as in a spatial planning cycle. The evaluation of design (ex ante
research) has been made with a GIS model developed to observe and assess connectivity at the level
of pedestrian mobility in the urban space.

The theoretical cycle begins with an analysis of fragmentation in the city. We introduce the concept
of urban ergonomics, a proposal for a scientific study of the interaction between users and urban
space. An integrated study of the relationships of patterns and structures is made briefly through
history of the city, arriving to a problem statement in urbanism at the beginning of the 21st Century:
the splintered city, that not only has disrupted physical urban structures, mainly in the form of sprawl,
but which has also been of decisive influence in fostering patterns of social organization that are con-
sidered unsustainable. We include an explanation of the reasons that made us decide to frame the
research within the spaces of mobility. This analysis gives way to a study of urban projects as a specific
phenomenon in the contemporary process of form-giving to the city.

The concept of transversal urban projects is proposed here as a concrete possible solution for frag-
mentation of urban tissues by the introduction of large-scale infrastructure for auto-mobility in the
city, specifically reporting the case study of Mexico City, part of the research project we presented at
Rotterdam’s first international architecture biennial. The theoretical cycle continues with the study of
connectivity as a strategy, considering that it may have a substantial impact in the sustainability of
the city. We examine diverse strategies that have looked after connectivity in the history of urbanism
and review contemporary urbanist charters also directed to connectivity and arrive to the notion of
connectivity as the potential of a network to be connected. Connection is the originating principle of
networks, which are formed by nodes, connections and present a hierarchy (Salingaros, 2005). The
notions of connection and of networks are closely interrelated. To close the theoretical cycle, we con-
sequently look at the city as a network, replacing the former zonal approach and undertaking Jane
Jacob’s proposal of comprehending the city as a phenomenon of organized complexity, a complex
system. We discuss properties of complex systems and principles for their research and intervention,
focusing on Salingaros’ rules of coherence for complex networks. At this point we make a link between

10 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

these principles and the basis for devising the observation and assessment model we propose in this
thesis.

The empirical cycle opens with the analysis of the empirical setting: Santiago de Querétaro, the author’s
hometown in Mexico, which is a typical mid-sized city (for Latin American standards). This analysis
comprehends views of the current fragmentation in the city and a retrospective of spatial planning in
its context. We have added a study of sprawl related to the economic un-viability of Querétaro, based
on empirical evidence. After providing the analysis of the empirical setting, we propose urban projects
at different scales, as catalysts for the processes of connection and re-connection. It is what we call
networked urban projects, which also respond to networked urban programs.
When discussing the projects, we start by looking at their programs as a whole. We seek to define the
meaning of “connectivity-oriented” as well as the concept of connected scales or holarchy, a feature of
complex systems (this time specifically in the context of the projects), and how do we follow the rules
of coherence translated into design. We have intended to conceive the different scales as networked,
i.e. one supports the other, as they are interrelated.

The number of projects proposed comes from an inverse power-law: we present 30 module-projects
in the pedestrian scale; 10 module-projects in the building scale; 4 projects in the block scale and one
project in the neighborhood scale.
To help sustain the viability of urban projects, we propose connectivity strategies, addressing prob-
lems identified as obstacles to the connectivity of the urban system.
Strategies for connection provide greater opportunities for urban projects to succeed as connectors
of the urban structure. They are not only spatial; they are integrated from a number of fields and are
targeted as well to environmental, social and economic goals.

Resulting of this work, a report of the design and application of a GIS model devised to observe and
assess conditions of transversal connectivity in the urban space is presented. A description of the
model, which is based upon the principles of urban structure and the rules of coherence of complex
systems, is also included. The GIS model was applied to areas of Querétaro studied before and after
the potential interventions with the proposed 45 urban projects grouped as seven cases of study. The
model provided an instrument for observation and assessment of the conditions of transversal con-
nectivity.

We conclude that a new approach to the ways we consider mobility is relevant in the measure it can
provide us with new strategies of what, where and how to reconnect our structures and consequently
our patterns of organization.
We acknowledge that design of urban projects is capable of achieving connectivity if:
a. it is built from scientific principles;
b. considers the city as a phenomenon of organized complexity;
c. uses networks as an approach to address organized complexity;
d. applies networking as a technique to include as much factors into account as possible, for a holistic
response; and
e. raises the common vision of a significant group of stakeholders instead of the singular vision of one
or a few individuals.

The application of complexity pattern maps such as the transversal connectivity cartograms presented
here opens the possibility of incorporating new exciting approaches to the use of patterns and the
consideration of complexity in urban design.

summary 11
 Samenvatting

Connectivity-Oriented Urban Projects

Ernesto Philibert Petit

Verbindingen in de gebouwde omgeving vormen het hoofdthema van Connectivity-Oriented Urban

Projects, in het bijzonder de gekoppelde verbindingen voor de mobiliteit van voetgangers. Gebaseerd
op de veronderstelling dat fysieke structuren een direct en wederzijds effect hebben op de patro-
nen van sociale organisatie en gedrag, wordt in dit onderzoek een instrumentele benadering van het
probleem van stedelijke fragmentatie gehanteerd. Voorgesteld worden concrete acties voor het bev-
orderen van connectiviteit, in de vorm van stedelijke projecten. De methode van onderzoek is research
by design. Het onderzoek is georganiseerd volgens een theoretische cyclus en een empirische cyclus.
Deze cycli bestaan, overeenkomend met de ruimtelijke planningcyclus, uit: analyse, ontwerp, strategie
en evaluatie. De (ex ante) evaluatie van het ontwerp is uitgevoerd met een GIS-model dat is ontwikkeld
om connectiviteit op het niveau van voetgangersmobiliteit te observeren en in te schatten.

De theoretische cyclus begint met een analyse van de stedelijke fragmentatie. Met het concept van
urban ergonomics wordt de interactie tussen gebruikers en stedelijke ruimte wetenschappelijk bestu-
deerd. Een kort stedelijk historisch overzicht van de relatie tussen patronen en structuren leidt tot de
stedebouwkundige probleemstelling voor de 21e eeuw. De splintered city heeft niet alleen de fysieke
stedelijke structuren ontregeld, meestal in de vorm van sprawl, maar beïnvloedt ook op een beslis-
sende manier niet-duurzame (in de betekenis van: unsustainable) patronen van sociale organisatie.

De analyse van de stedelijke ruimten voor mobiliteit is de opmaat voor het onderzoek naar stedelijke
projecten als kenmerkend fenomeen in het huidige proces van vormgeven aan de stad. Het concept
transversal urban projects wordt hier voorgesteld als een mogelijke oplossing voor het tegengaan van
de fragmentatie van het stedelijke weefsel, door middel van grootschalige infrastructuur voor auto-
mobiliteit. Het casusonderzoek in Mexico City, onderdeel van dit onderzoekproject, werd gepresen-
teerd op de eerste Rotterdamse internationale architectuur biënnale in 2003.

De theoretische cyclus wordt voortgezet met het onderzoek naar connectiviteit als strategie, overweg-
end dat dit van substantiële invloed is op de duurzaamheid van de stad. Verschillende strategieën zijn
onderzocht, die in de geschiedenis van de stedebouwkunde zijn ingezet om connectiviteit te bevor-
deren, alsook strategieën die in hedendaagse handvesten (charters) worden beschouwd als potentieel
van belang voor het tot stand brengen van verbindingen tussen netwerken. De begrippen connection
en networks zijn nauw met elkaar verbonden. Connection is het scheppende beginsel van netwerken
die worden gevormd door knopen, verbindingen en hiërarchie (Salingaros, 2005).

De theoretische cyclus wordt beëindigd met het vervangen van de vroegere zonale benadering door
een consequente netwerkbenadering. Daarmee wordt aangesloten op het voorstel van Jane Jacobs
om de stad te begrijpen als een verschijnsel van georganiseerde complexiteit, dus als een complex
systeem. De eigenschappen van complexe systemen en de principes om die te bestuderen en te beïn-
vloeden worden bediscussieerd, met speciale aandacht voor Salingaros’ rules of coherence (regels

12 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

voor samenhang) voor complexe netwerken. Ook wordt een verbinding gelegd tussen deze principes
en de basis voor het observatie- en toepassingsmodel dat in dit boek wordt voorgesteld.

De empirische cyclus opent met de analyse van de locatie: Santiago de Querétaro in Mexico, een
typische middelgrote stad naar Latijns-Amerikaanse maatstaven, tevens de woonplaats van de auteur.
Deze analyse omvat inzichten betreffende de huidige stedelijke fragmentatie en een terugblik op de
ruimtelijke planning in deze context. Toegevoegd is een empirisch onderzoek naar sprawl gerelateerd
aan het gebrek aan economische levensvatbaarheid in Querétaro. Na de analyse van de empirische
achtergrond worden stedelijke projecten op verschillende ruimtelijke schaal voorgesteld, als katalysa-
toren voor de processen van verbinding en her-verbinden. Deze worden networked urban projects
genoemd in het kader van networked urban programs. De projecten worden bediscussieerd vanuit de
programma’s als geheel. Er worden definities beproefd van de orientatie op connectiviteit en van het
concept van verbonden schalen aangeduid als holarchy. Holarchie is een kenmerk van complexe sys-
temen, hier specifiek in de context van de projecten. Ook wordt uitgelegd hoe de rules of coherence
worden vertaald naar het ontwerp.

Het aantal voorgesteld projecten is bepaald vanuit een inverse-power law: 30 projecten op de schaal
van de voetganger, 10 projecten op die van het gebouw; 4 projecten op bouwblokniveau; en een
project op de schaal van de buurt. Om de leefbaarheid van stedelijke projecten te ondersteunen,
worden connectiviteitsstrategieën voorgesteld, gericht op problemen die een obstakel vormen in
de connectiviteit van de stedelijke systemen. Strategieën voor connectiviteit bieden grotere kansen
om stedelijke projecten te doen slagen als connectors in de stedelijke structuur. Deze zijn niet alleen
ruimtelijk, maar ook zijn zij gericht op milieu-, sociale en economische doelen.

Tot slot wordt gerapporteerd over het ontwerp en de toepassing van een GIS-model dat is bedacht
om de condities te observeren en in te schatten van transversal connectivity in de stedelijke ruimte
van Santiago de Querétaro. Een beschrijving van het model is opgenomen, gebaseerd op de principes
van stedelijke structuur en de coherentiewetmatigheden van complexe systemen. Het GIS-model is
toegepast in de zeven casus studies, met de in totaal 45 stedelijke projecten, op de situatie voor en na
de voorgestelde interventies, om op die manier de transversale connectiviteitseffecten beoordeelbaar
te maken.

Geconcludeerd wordt, dat mobiliteit, op deze nieuwe manier benaderd, van belang is in zoverre het
resulteert in nieuwe strategieën voor het opnieuw verbinden van bestaande structuren en bijgevolg
de organisatie van patronen. Het ontwerp van stedelijke projecten verbetert de connectiviteit als het:
a. gestoeld is op wetenschappelijke principes;
b. de stad beschouwt als een verschijnsel van georganiseerde complexiteit;
c. gebruik maakt van netwerken om die georganiseerde complexiteit te benaderen;
d. netwerken toepast als een techniek om zo veel mogelijk factoren mee te nemen; en
e. gebaseerd is op een gedeelde visie van een betekenisvolle groepering stakeholders, in plaats van
op de eenzijdige visie van een of enkele individuen.
Het gebruik van complexity pattern maps zoals de transversal connectivity cartograms die in dit boek
zijn gepresenteerd, opent de mogelijkheid tot het opnemen van nieuwe uitdagende, op patronen
gebaseerde benaderingen bij het stedebouwkundig ontwerpen.

samenvatting 13
14 Connectivity-oriented urban projects
1 Introduction

The structure of this thesis

This thesis is organized in ten chapters: this first one is an introduction describing the structure and
process of the whole work; eight ‘central’ chapters and a final, conclusions chapter.
Although this work is conceived as a whole, its chapters can be read independently; this is the reason
for presenting every chapter with an introduction and conclusions and this also explains to have a
general introduction that contains the particular introductions for each chapter and to have as well a
general conclusions chapter containing the particular conclusions of each chapter.
The central chapters of this thesis are organized in a cyclic fashion that comes from the ‘plan cycle in
education’ proposed by the Network City Studio in the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft.
In its early stages, the research was organized (not purposely) similar to the basic plan cycle: target-tool-
execution-judgment. The initial target was to propose urban projects (tools) to revert fragmentation
(target) in the city. We actually executed a series of urban projects following this idea and presented
them in the Rotterdam’s First Architecture Biennale in 2003. However, with the evolution that only time
can bring, this work has had a structural adaptation to a deeper cycle in which ‘strategies’ have been
included:
Analysis-Design-Strategy-Evaluation (Ill. 1)

Illustration 1. The spatial planning cycle in

education. Diagram by the author

The central chapters of this thesis (Chapters 2-9) are thus structured in two rounds, one theoretical, the
second empirical following the plan cycle in education.
The theoretical cycle starts with chapter 2 analyzing fragmentation in the urban realm and makes a
problem statement; in chapter 3, we make design proposals in the form of connective urban projects;
chapter 4 takes on connectivity as a strategy and in chapter 5, we propose an assessment of connectiv-
ity based on the new science of networks.
The empirical cycle begins then in chapter 6 with an analysis of the empirical setting, Querétaro; chap-
ter 7 then presents a network of specific urban programs and projects; chapter 8 complements the

Chapter 1: Introduction 15
 programs and projects proposed with strategies of connectivity and chapter 9 is about the particular
tool we use in this thesis for observation and assessment of (transversal) connectivity.
The work ends with chapter 10, that presents conclusions and our vision on ‘what’s next’ with the
investigation conducted these last years.

The cycle analysis-design-strategy-evaluation is present in this thesis in a similar form that we visualize
tridimensionally a DNA molecule. One of the strands corresponds to the right hemisphere of the brain,
the other to the left. The left hemisphere, dominant for language, mathematics and logic corresponds
to the left strand; the right hemisphere, dominant for spatial abilities and visual imagery, corresponds
to the right strand.
Strands in the DNA molecule as well as in the brain are connected by a high number of links, in case of
the former in a billionaire sequence; in the case of the human brain the corpus callosus contains ca. 250
million nerve fibers to connect both hemispheres that can think together, connected.

Coincidentally, the analysis and evaluation areas are in the left side of the diagram quite as much these
areas belong to the left hemisphere; the areas of design and strategy are oriented to spatial and visual-
izing abilities that belong to the right hemisphere.
The process is cyclical, going clockwise, and evolving over time, being time the third dimension (verti-
cal) in the molecular diagram (Ill. 2).

Illustration 2. Graphic representation of

the strands in the DNA molecule.

Research process (2001-2006)

The subject of study of this thesis was first approached while working for the 1ABR about the issue of
mobility in the Mexico City region. Studying the spaces of (auto) mobility and looking for a definition
of a problem statement, brought us to notice how the urban tissues at both sides of the motorways
are spatially fragmented. We concentrated on the issue of spatial fragmentation in the city by means
of the routes of (auto) mobility. We then proposed in the Biennial a series of “transversal projects” that
had the aim to reconnect the urban tissues at both sides of the motorways.
In this early stage of the research, the process included only analysis and design. We perceived a prob-
lem through analysis and reacted as spatial designers with urban projects. However, in this stage of the
research we found a valuable technique that helped us to analyze the complexity of urban space, what

16 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

we have called “dynamic scales”, that is nothing more that mobility through scales while analyzing (V.
de Jong).
With a dynamic scales analysis, our team was able to propose more and more appropriate urban
projects regarding “Aesthetics of Mobility” in a longitudinal sense, as well as transversal urban projects
to connect the urban tissues in a series of nodes along the route studied. This early process of the
research is further discussed on chapters 2 and 3.
A very important conceptual modification in the research came along in October 2003 while receiving
the visit of Paul Drewe my supervisor and Marisa Carmona to Mexico City in an international seminar
organized by the UNAM that was followed by a visit of Professor Drewe to Querétaro and a week after,
the Alfa Ibis seminar in Valparaiso. In the research we were looking forward to make spatial proposals
to tackle the problem of urban sustainability, but looking at the methodological complications this
would bring as well as to the analysis and design developed for the Biennial, I decided to replace the
word sustainability for connectivity. In the end I was looking for a means (urban projects), to improve
the spatial connectedness of the urban fabric.
In that moment, strategy appeared more clearly as connection.
With such conceptual change, and having a strategy, the research had a clearer direction as well, and
reduced uncertainties (Mintzberg 1990)1 .
Connection as the general strategy of the research brought back the work of Nikos A. Salingaros into
scene. I had read some of Prof. Salingaros’ work in the internet with much interest and with many
points of agreement, but it was until a strategy of connection appeared in the process of the research
when a link to our research appeared too.
I met Nikos Salingaros for the first time in December 2003 in San Antonio. He was very kind to give time
to listen to the ideas we had been developing in the research. To present these ideas, I drew a small
sketch of an urban project over an (auto) mobility route and expressed the intention to propose spatial
connections for the urban tissue with such kind of interventions. His comment was polite as well as
intriguing: “This is fine, but… why don’t you start by smaller projects?” This comment first rang a bell
and later was of great influence on the research. We had been using an analysis technique of dynamic
scales but only in the range from the building scale to the metropolitan scale. Wasn’t Urbanism about
these scales? Why should we start by smaller projects? This took us back to analysis. We had to find a
good reason to start by smaller projects if we were going to do so. Reading his work and sources and
inviting Prof. Salingaros to our university in Querétaro in February 2004 to deliver a master class on his
“Theory of the Urban Web” and a talk to our research seminar brought a lot more of theoretical sup-
port to the research, but maybe it was following his recommendation of re-reading the last chapter
of Jane Jacob’s Death and Life… that gave the clue to connect the parts: cities are a problem of organ-
ized complexity, which also took the research to refer to networks as a tool for studying this organized
complexity. This first round through the stages of analysis, design, strategy and evaluation finished
when discussing with professor Salingaros about probable methods of evaluating connectivity in the
research. Again the answer had a direction to networks: graph theory.
The second round of the process of research began along with 2004. An approach to networks and
urban networks in general, and connectivity and connectedness in particular through documental
analysis of the work of Drewe, Salingaros, Jacobs, Alexander, Johnson, Dupuy, Barabási, Watts, Stro-
gatz, Capra et al. was undertaken at this point. Then a very opportune documental suggestion by Paul
Drewe came into scene: the New (2003) Charter of Athens. Taking this key document as a guideline
brought a holistic approach to the connection strategy. Sustainability appeared again in the research,
but now emerging through the interlinked sum of the environmental, economic and social connectivi-
ties targeted in the Charter, rather than being fabricated as an aim in a top-down master plan.
In this second round of analysis, fragmentation again has been identified as a paramount problem in
the city. We identified spatial fragmentation as before and furthermore, in a holistic sense, other edges

Chapter 1: Introduction 17
 of fragmentation: economic, social and environmental in a theoretical approach of the analysis and
also regarding specifically the city in which we were going to make the empirical research, Querétaro.
In 2004, we produced research by analysis in the form of five articles, which in one way or another are
present of this thesis.

• Structures and Patterns of Fragmentation and Connectivity. A Preliminary Assessment of Eight Areas
in the City of Querétaro, is a large article presented in the international seminar organized by the
Jiaotong University in Shanghai, which contains analysis on Urban Ergonomics, or applying scien-
tific principles to the study of the users (patterns) as well as of the (structure) used, in an analogy of
what Industrial Design does in a smaller scale than Urban Design.
The article presents a general study of the City Structure and Fragmentation, regarding the ever-
evolving relationship of patterns and structure in the city through time.
It analyses as well, the structures and patterns of fragmentation in Querétaro, with focus on eight
areas of the city considered as strategic. This analysis appears in this thesis after the introduction to
the empirical framework, in chapter 6.

• Sustentabilidad económica del modelo de crecimiento urbano desparramado. El caso del área metro-
politana de Querétaro (Economic Sustainability of the Sprawl Model of Growth. The Case of the Met-
ropolitan Area of Querétaro), was presented in the international seminar of the Red Mexicana de
Ciudades a la Sustentabilidad, or Mexican Network of Cities for Sustainability in Querétaro, Mexico.
This article, written in collaboration with Ignacio Kunz and Carlos Morales, reports the results pre-
dicted by a model developed by Carlos Morales with the input of the data researched in Structures
and Patterns about the economic viability of the present model of growth projected to the future,
in terms of land development for all the socio-economic groups.

• Surplus Value Capture: From Growth through Development through Urban Projects is an article pre-
sented in the Alfa Ibis seminar of November in Delft. The article focuses on the possibility of captur-
ing surplus value from urban growth, as an instrument to achieve urban development, through the
designation of strategic specific targets for the resources captured: urban projects.

• Querétaro, is a collaborative article published as part of a book on 25 Alfa-Ibis cities. Produced with
my colleagues in the Seminario de Redes Urbanas, in which the general conditions of the city are
reported, it includes the sections City Data (Ixchel García and myself), City Profile (Fernando Núñez),
City History (Carlos Arvizu), Globalization: Opportunities and Contradictions (Stefania Biondi), Urban
Strategies (Ramón Abonce) and Strategic Projects (myself). Selected parts of this article are included
in chapter 6.

• Metamobility: In Search for Connections Within the Networks of Mobility is an article presented as
part of a book edited by the Spatial Planning section of the Urbanism Department of the Faculty
of Architecture at TU Delft. Four factors give form to this paper: the emerging network paradigm
as a conceptualisation tool of mobility, the current fragmented reality of our space, the recent sci-
entific discovery of principles of the urban structure and the opportunity we can find in the spaces
of mobility as subjects of intervention to achieve connections needed for the sustainability of our
civilisation. It is a synthesis of different edges of the doctoral research.

At the same time, we have to mention that this second phase of analysis was thoroughly comple-
mented in the empirical framework, through consulting for the local government of Querétaro, per-
sonally developing an overall strategy called “Conectando Querétaro” and on diverse other subjects

18 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

but mostly regarding the organization of the methodology and framework for the local spatial plans, or
Planes Parciales de Desarrollo Urbano Delegacional, works which started early in 2004 and are expected
to be finished by Summer 2005. From our point of view, this contact between academic research and
practical matters regarding the case of study has enriched the experience even more.
In the second round of design, which has happened intertwined with the analysis; we have developed
a series of urban projects of diverse scales and settings in Querétaro.
With the participation of my students in the course and design studio Ecología de Proyectos in the
Specialty of Urban Design at my university, and following Salingaros’ Principles of Urban Structure, we
proposed a series of urban projects for an infill development in the area called Arco Norte in the 2004
spring semester. Prof. Salingaros visited the studio in February and October and held a multi-point vid-
eoconference from San Antonio with our studio in Querétaro and Prof. Drewe in Delft in April 2004.
The following semester, a small group of students, whom had taken Ecología de Proyectos, registered
in Proyectos 1, a design studio from the same specialty in which we further developed three urban
projects of a neighborhood scale (100 – 300 m) in the Arco Norte sector but this time in its eastern
part: the conversion through infill development of a commercial warehouse, a commercial mall and a
vacant, formerly industrial large lot of land. The studio made also projects for what we called “interper-
sonal” spaces, in the scale of 10 – 30 m, small urban projects devised to make spatial connections in the
pedestrian scale. Finally, the students from this studio graduated in the summer 2004 but voluntarily
continued working in an infill project for the area of the stadium, that we have named Puerta Corregi-
dora. Many of these small, medium and large urban projects have been used as well for evaluation,
because in spite of the fact that they are not detailed and finished yet, their contribution to connectiv-
ity can be measured. The overall strategy of connection was not lost from sight at any moment, using
a design analysis of dynamic scales.
The wealth of information obtained from academic studio projects was increased in the research by
our participation in other consultancy projects, such as a report for the local government on the con-
nectedness of Querétaro’s primary avenues structure, a project developed in the first half of 2004.
The second round of strategy also brought to the research a broader and more complex scope of spatial
connections. During my stay in Delft in the early summer of 2004, the Delft School of Design opened
with an inaugural conference. The chair of spatial design, headed by prof. Paul Drewe brought to Delft
a group of personalities that have been working theoretically or practically with the network-city. The
contributions of Paul Drewe, Jan Vogelij, Nikos Salingaros, Michael Mehaffy, Francesc Magrinya, Brian
Phillips and Scott Paige were influential in this research. Before the conference we had the opportunity
to finish reading the whole Principles of Urban Structures and make notes about them.
In the late summer of 2004 we had access for the first time to the latest work by Christopher Alexander,
The Nature of Order that in my opinion will provoke a healthy and much needed polemic in our disci-
pline and hopefully, pervasive changes in the fields of spatial design in many scales. The New Charter
of Athens has provided a strategic agenda. After a workshop with government officials in April 2004
with the objective of determining general aims and strategies for sustainability, and in reference to the
municipal development plan of Querétaro, a consensus appeared on twelve aims that the partial plans
as well as any urban project should look after. These aims, the first step to define strategies, are listed
in the table to the right. Strategies to be developed “consist of determining a realistic mission, propos-
ing aims and formulating the policy for spatial developments in such a way the aims that have been
formulated can be achieved efficiently and effectively” (Abell, D. F. Managing with Dual Strategies, in
Brouwver, et al. (2004)) Further explanation of the aims, strategies and strategic projects for Querétaro
can be found in chapter 7 about (connective) projects.
This research has focused on one aspect that is believed to have the most positive influence on the
other aspects considered in the aims: pedestrian spatial connectivity, the basic scale of connections in
the Urban Web. (Ill. 3, 4)

Chapter 1: Introduction 19
 Illustration 3. Graph and matrix repre-
sentation of connectivity in a network.
Rodrigue, J-P et al. (2006) The Geography
of Transport Systems, Hofstra University,
Department of Economics & Geography,
http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans.

Illustration 4. Potential polarity represen-

tation using a GIS cartogram by Fernando
Tovar

Evaluation in the first round had taken into account ex ante and ex post evaluation of connectivity by
means of graph theory. Using the connectivity matrix and the alpha, beta and gamma indexes, spatial
connectivity can be measured following the Theory of the Urban Web.
However, we decided to develop a new evaluation tool especially for the strategic placing of the urban
projects to be considered. This tool is based on GIS and takes into account graphically, the node den-
sity, the link density and their interaction. We took measurements of node and link densities in the
lively historic centre of Querétaro to define a standard for comparison. This standard corresponds to
a lively, well connected area of the city that presents certain patterns that should be further studied
and analyzed, to be reinterpreted in other areas. In the meanwhile, we obtained the GIS readings men-
tioned above. This technique served to establish strategic points where to place the strategic urban
projects. The results of the strategic GIS observation and evaluation as well as a connectivity assess-
ment comparison are presented in chapter 9.

Fragmentation as a problem statement

In chapter 2, we aim to establish the issue of fragmentation as a common condition in the city of today,
transcending the still usual divide between the studies of the so called ‘developed’ cities and ‘develop-
ing’ cities (Graham and Marvin, 2001).
It is argued that a scientific approach to the study of both the urban structures and the patterns of
organization of their users is needed. We accordingly propose the introduction of a new scale for ergo-
nomics, a discipline that has almost always has dealt with objects and their working relationship with
their users, in what we have called urban ergonomics, a scientific study of the relationship between
urban structures and the patterns of organization of their users, the citizens. This relationship goes
beyond the concept of use, to a more holistic concept of function, which includes in the equation struc-

20 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

ture and meaning, in addition to only use. To support this proposal, this chapter contains an analysis
of the relationship between urban structures and their corresponding patterns through history; this
analysis, and the conceptual model adopted, provide the elements to state that cities’ physical struc-
tures and the patterns of organization of their users are interdependent and evolve dynamically one
in terms of the other.
With urban ergonomics as a reciprocal study of patterns and structures, we analyze the emerging net-
worked structures and patterns of the typical city of the beginning of the 21st century, a ‘splintered’
city whose segmented structures drift everyday more and more apart from their users, following a pat-
tern of sprawling growth that may benefit only a very few in detriment of the large majorities.
Spatial fragmentation in the city can be then stated as a problem, due to the unsustainable nature of
its corresponding economic, social and environmental patterns. We point out a probable future for
sustainability related to urban conditions, taking in one hand fragmentation and its corresponding
patterns (probable quality) and in the other, the projection of growth of urban population in the world
for this 21st century (urban quantity).
To finish this chapter, we explain why, with a need to focus in this thesis, we have chosen to concentrate
on the phenomenon of fragmentation caused by infrastructures of auto-mobility overimposed in the
urban fabric, as a specific approach to urban fragmentation.
Splintered by the over-imposition of a number of technological infrastructures, in which mobility infra-
structure takes an important role (Graham and Marvin 2001), or increasingly segregated by global
socio-economic phenomena (Castells 1996), the space of our cities today is disconnected more than
ever, seen from economic, social and environmental perspectives. In spite of the emergence of a series
of new global-virtual connections, a perverse process of local-physical fragmenting structures and
patterns has taken place in our cities. This problem needs new instruments of spatial planning and
design to be modified, for the sake of sustainability of our civilization.

Connective urban projects

Urban projects, as an inductive form of city making are here considered as a feasible tool for achieving
sustainable urban development. After the failure of traditional deductive instruments in controlling or
at least orienting urban development and having received loads of criticism for its recurrent discon-
nection from the local realities when devised unilaterally by a top-down model, urban projects appear
now as an instrument in the city’s local realm to connect needs and aspirations of its citizens with
resources and attention from global networks, which generally operate under they own norms and
codes. Moreover, in its design stage, urban projects are a concretion-providing instrument by visualiz-
ing the possible future qualitatively as well as quantitatively and even more, they can be established as
objective targets to place resources generated by alternative forms of financing urban development,
like the capture of surplus value, an opportunity to transcend the limited and partial vision of growth,
to a more inclusive, equity-seeking perspective of development.
After defining the what, why, where and who’s of the urban projects in the thesis, this chapter exam-
ines an inclusive perspective for them in a holistic form-giving process of the city. It makes as well a
reflection on the origin of this possibility by the empowerment of local instances by the global trend
of de-centralization. Although it is a reality that currently many local governments operate under the
model of the growth machine, structured by the urban regime theory, of which we will make references
later, urban projects can be a local response to globalization, if it can be found out how to harmonize
them with general top-down planning guidelines, how to overcome constrains to urban productivity

Chapter 1: Introduction 21
 and most important, how to achieve alternative ways of financing the development that otherwise
local governments would not be able to afford with their common revenues. We think that urban
projects can be programmed in those three directions, adopting a method, like Paul Drewe’s (1993)
Mixed Scanning, that puts into play both top-down and bottom-up approaches. Furthermore, we pro-
pose a fundamental subject for the agenda of urban projects: connectivity.

This chapter is somehow anecdotic if not illustrative of the process the research of this thesis has fol-
lowed. We present what we called transversal projects for the proposals for the route studied for the
2003 First International Architecture Biennial, Mexico Avenue 2030, because they were a designer’s reac-
tion to the fragmentation found in the city early in the research development. These early transversal
projects however had the essence of what the main hypothesis and the notion of connectivity and of
connected scales are in this thesis. I can say that these last two more evolved notions were detonated on
my first personal interview with Nikos Salingaros, a few months after the Biennial was over when I was
seeking out for advice on how to measure connectivity before and after the interventions proposed in
the Mexico Avenue project.
In chapter 3, the transitions within this research from dynamic scales to connected scales and from
transversal projects to transversal connectivity by urban projects are examined. To say it briefly, con-
nected scales refer to the holarchic organization of the complex system the city is and transversal con-
nectivity is understood as the study of the connections of a given node with smaller scales, which as I
said, emerged as a primary and mostly intuitive concept after the observation of fragmentation in the
urban tissue in Mexico City while working in the proposals for the Biennial.

With the intention to illustrate the concept of transversal connection, we present in this chapter some
cases of transversal connective urban projects through history (from Ponte Vecchio to Orange County).
Conclusions are drawn at the end of this design focused chapter, preceding the next, strategy-phase,
boarding connections in chapter 4.

Connection as a strategy
What do we mean by connection as a strategy in terms of this thesis?
The central hypothetical assumption of this thesis is that networks of urban projects can connect
the fragmented city.
When fragmentation is the first preliminary conclusion of observation and interpretation, it is time
to seriously consider connection as a strategy for city planning and design. Fragmentation of city
structures has contributed to fragmentation in patterns of organisation of our society. Thus, economic
polarization, social segregation and environmental disruption are causes but at the same time effects,
since there is a cyclic process between structures and patterns. Connecting spatially fragmented enti-
ties can help reduce fragmentation in social organisation patterns. New scientific knowledge is here to
orient connection processes in the form of the emerging science of networks, where the spatial notion
of accessibility is translated into the notion of connectedness, the state of connection (as an individual
or household) to a given network, be it spatial, social, economic, environmental, and informational or
a fusion of them.

The work of professor Nikos Salingaros regarding urban structures is in a scientific cutting-edge theory
about connections and networks in the built environment and the presence of his work is very strong
in this thesis in the overall scope.

22 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

It can be said that Salingaros’ work is mostly about studying connections. His books Principles of Urban
Structure (2005) and A Theory of Architecture (2006) are dedicated to establish scientifically the princi-
ples that rule the complex relationships between humans and their built environment, or in the con-
ceptual model adopted in this thesis, the complex relationship between patterns and structure.
Some of those principles are taken here as the basis for the empirical study and are discussed theoreti-
cally in chapters 4 and 5. However, we don’t pretend to make a descriptive synthesis of Nikos Salinga-
ros’ work; we would rather underline and discuss about specific principles in which this thesis is based,
and make a direct link of such principles with our empirical research.

The city as a network

After the first modernity’s zonal view of the city, that proved to be ineffective to deal with the complex-
ity of the urban phenomenon, new scientific discoveries in the “new” science of networks are provid-
ing the fundament for innovative approaches to the phenomenon that might be able to deal with such
complexity in a more effective way.
One of the more urgent issues to deal with is that of urban fragmentation, a condition that has always
existed in cities, but does now with an exacerbation provoked in the last 150 years by an explosive
expansion of the urban structures with fragmentary patterns of use.
In chapter 5, we intend to give fundament to the change of the conceptual model to study connec-
tions in the city, from the zonal, mechanistic to the networked, holistic. A change of approaches in
science corresponds to the kind of problems science has progressively learned to deal with, however
conserving features from “primitive” scientific paradigms to address problems of a higher complexity
and organization.
First, we explore fundaments to establish that the city is a problem of organized complexity. We remark
the properties of complex systems as a reference to the kind of system we deal with when studying
the city. We start from Jane Jacobs’ differentiation of the three kinds of scientific approaches to the
city, further explained with the help of McCarthy’s table of scientific and philosophical mindscapes, or
worldviews, associating the features of those mindscapes with the abstractions of the city, from the
zone to the network. Then, the evolution of scientific approaches up to the relatively recently discov-
ered complex systems is discussed, then aligning these approaches with their corresponding scientific
methods, from the Cartesian calculus, to the stochastic probability and statistics arriving to the graph
theory and other methods to come to observe and assess complex systems. Observation and assess-
ment are addressed here as the main components of the empirical side of science.
We explore the possibility of considering cities as social networks, and with provisional answers to the
question “what kind of network a city is?” we propose the introduction of the “new” network science to
deal with the city, looking forward to organizing complexity as spatial planners and designers or rather
as spatial “form-giving actors”. This introduction of the new network science is first in general and then
in a specific form with principles of the urban web and rules for (geometrical) coherence ( developed
by Nikos Salingaros), being these last, associated with concepts that are thought to be useful for obser-
vation and assessment of specific interventions (urban projects) in the city.

Querétaro
Santiago de Querétaro is the urban setting for the empirical research of this thesis is at the same time
a typical and a peculiar mid-sized city of Mexico and Latin America.

Chapter 1: Introduction 23
 The largest sector of the urban population in Latin America lives in what today are mid-sized cities like
Querétaro. These cities are expected to grow, in general, a 60% in the next 25 years. Querétaro how-
ever, is expected to at least duplicate its one-million population in the same period, due to its strategic
position in the NAFTA communication network and close to Mexico City and at the same time, part of
the Mexico City megalopolis. In chapter 6 we present a brief set of data and make an analysis of the
metropolitan area of Querétaro as a node, from the scope of networks.
Being fragmentation the central problem statement studied in this thesis, we present an analysis of
the fragmentation of the city of Querétaro, first in general and then by studying eight strategic areas
of the city that are thought to have a high potential for placing urban projects, specifically oriented to
connect the city in a holistic sense. We present a brief history of urban planning in Querétaro, as a refer-
ence frame to ponder the analysis. We also include here a study made in 2004 by the author about the
economic features of sprawl in Querétaro, regarding its economic viability. The conclusion of chapter 6
gives way to specific connectivity oriented urban project-proposals to be explained on chapter 7.

A network of connective urban projects

Chapter 7 is about design. Urban projects are a product of urban design processes in which many
different disciplines act, and as we have seen in chapter 3, urban projects are concrete interventions
(planned or built) in the urban space.
Urban Projects are defined in this chapter as a visualization of a given urban object, previous to its
materialization or construction. The project is in fact integrated by two main components, the abstract
conceptualization which we call program and the concretion or specifically the form-giving to the
concepts. In the design process a continuous cycle exists between program and form-giving, between
abstract and concrete.
Urban projects can be catalysts oriented to connectivity in the urban realm, being connectivity under-
stood as the potential of connecting, and in our case, the potential of connecting people and urban
structures at the pedestrian scale.
Connectivity at the pedestrian scale is underpinned by pedestrian mobility (capillarity) and by the
potential of the urban space to act as an information interface (visual permeability). Connectivity at
the pedestrian scale can be related positively to local economic cycles, social mix and environmental
conservation.
In Chapter 6, we made an analysis of the area of study, a mid-sized (for Mexican standards) city in Latin
America, with a high rate of growth and still with a high potential of keeping on growing: Querétaro,
where we defined a number of strategic areas in which to intervene with connective urban projects. A
selection between these areas was made to designate one as a test-bed for connective urban projects.
This area is the so called Arco Norte, or Northern Arc, a former industrial zone with a very low gross
density, which has been reconverting in the last years. We start chapter 6 by making a deeper descrip-
tion of this area and then we discuss the projects that are taken as design hypotheses in this work. To
introduce the projects, we first talk about the notion of “networked” programs and projects since this
is the base of the hypothetical content in this chapter: we are not intending to intervene in the city
punctually (as in the urban acupuncture theory) but by the means of a network of projects, connected
horizontally in a plan but at the same time vertically in scales.
When discussing the projects, we start by looking at their program as a whole. We seek to define the
meaning of “connectivity-oriented” as well as the concept of connected scales (this time specifically
in the context of the projects) and how do we expect to follow the rules of coherence translated to
design, that we expose in chapter 5.

24 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

We make then a brief description of the projects: 30 at the interpersonal scale; 10 at the building-scale;
4 at the block-scale and one at the neighborhood scale. Descriptions include the name of the project,
its scale and location and an explanation of the program. The given form that the projects have taken is
relevant here only to the extent of the quality of boundaries they provide to the urban space; therefore
architectural definition in the images depicting the projects is not included.

Connectivity strategies for the urban system

In the Spatial Planning and Design Department of the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical Univer-
sity of Delft, Holland, two cycles have been identified (Brouwer, Hulsbergen and Kriens) that illustrate
the steps through which spatial design processes pass. The most obvious is the practice cycle, made
up of four cyclical stages: analysis, design, execution and evaluation. The second, called the theoreti-
cal cycle for spatial planning and design, also consists of four cyclical stages: analysis, design, strate-
gies and evaluation.
The major difference between the practice and theoretical cycles is that the latter includes strategies
that make the cycle more complete, given that, in reality, the practice cycle passes directly from the
proposal of a solution, hypothesis or design to execution to evaluation (when conditions permit) and
so on, in succession. The theoretical cycle identifies, prior to execution, a series of strategies whose
desired effect is to help achieve the design’s goals or objectives; that is, to complement design propos-
als in order to carry out the mission in a more structured way.
The practice cycle, as its name suggests, is based on trial and error. In fact, there is a pragmatic design
method that functions precisely this way, launching formal hypotheses and later testing their validity
through execution. In the theoretical cycle, the designer has the valuable opportunity to deepen his or
her approaches through the use of strategies that complement and support them. The fact is that the
practice cycle tends to become erratic and to have too-narrow links between the proposals and their
later execution and evaluation, once the design has been converted into something spatially concrete.
The theoretical cycle is strategically deepened to ensure that determined goals are achieved in the
design phase, but there is no concrete way to test the hypotheses beyond the use of reality models.
A third cycle is proposed to connect the two mentioned above, forming a hybrid between the theoreti-
cal and practice cycles that retains the best of both. A third cycle that may retain the best of the two
above-mentioned cycles: concrete testing of design hypotheses that have been carefully studied and
supported by strategies. (Ill.5)

Illustration 5. Diagram of the third cycle

Chapter 1: Introduction 25
 This chapter proposes a vision for spatial planning and design that uses the third cycle, beginning with
urban projects and the use of strategies.
Urban projects permit the completion of the principal premise of the practice cycle; that is, that the
hypotheses can be carried out. Carrying out the hypotheses, although it may only be virtually by means
of concrete urban projects, permits the evaluation of the design as if it had already been built. This
proposal goes beyond the abstract planning that dominated the growth and organization of cities in
the past century and is the emerging trend today.
Strategies, in turn, permit theoretical deepening which supports the design through identification of
structured forms to achieve the goals the design lays out.
The methodological proposal presented here goes beyond strategic planning as it is understood
today. It seeks to integrate public participation in defining the design and strategies for achieving
its objectives, beginning with the construction of a common vision of a possible future. Moreover, its
objective is to attack the most serious problem for sustainability of the urban system in the probable
future (identification of problems); in it five general sustainability goals are proposed (spatial planning)
and, in addition, it refers directly to concrete urban projects (spatial design), uniting both approaches
to providing solutions. The proposed methodology surpasses the three facets that have traditionally
contributed to thinking on sustainability (environmental, social and economic) in order to support also
the aspect of local identity and the use of complex systems and networks to deal with the phenom-
enon of organized complexity that is, in fact, the city.
The third cycle proposed here complements the advantages of the theoretical and practice cycles for
spatial planning and design but also adds the integrating vision of Paul Drewe (2001) who for some
years has proposed that the reading of reality be done beginning with what has been called mixed
scanning or mixed scrutiny of reality. In Drewe’s proposal, the combined approaches are those of
bottom-to-top projects with top-to-bottom contours. Our proposal deals with the concurrence of
the two cycles, one more abstract or theoretical (that of planning, with its corresponding strategies)
and the other more concrete or practical (that of spatial design of urban projects with its objective
quantifiability).
In every case, one must establish a link between the strategies as part of a mixed cycle or mixed scan-
ning and the projects presented in the previous chapter. We should consider these projects as a direct
response to an identified problem and remember that they follow programmatic statements that
derive from the broad objectives or general goals of connectivity, previously laid out.
In this chapter we recount a step prior to urban projects in order to position them methodologically.
This previous step refers to the definition of problems identified as the most serious obstacles to con-
nectivity and continuity of the urban system. We then refer to the step following the implementation
of the projects, the central theme of this chapter, the establishment of strategies for achieving connec-
tivity goals proposed in urban projects.

Design and application of a tool for observation and

assessment of transversal connectivity
While chapter 5 deals with theoretical concepts for observation and assessment of transversal con-
nectivity, in chapter 9 we document the application of these concepts to concrete cases, observing
transversal connectivity with a model based on GIS technology, and then making interventions with
a network of urban projects (chapter 7) and assessing the differences pointed out by the model in a
graphic interface.
Chapter 9 starts by recalling the network science concepts adopted previously, namely the rules for
urban coherence in which the model for observation and assessment is based. This first part explains

26 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

in general, the designation of variables after the rules for urban coherence and how these variables are
networked to arrive to a resultant of transversal connectivity. There is an explanation for the concrete
application of concepts as nodal densities, potential polarity, visual permeability and capillarity, for the
graphic definition of transversal connectivity.
We then board on the explanation of the GIS model we devised to make the observation and evalua-
tion of transversal connectivity in an urban system. By translating the concepts into variables and then
again into graphic representations in a geographic information system, the explanation of the model
includes the procedures followed to produce maps of nodal densities, potential polarity, visual perme-
ability and capillarity to obtain a networked map of transversal connectivity in the end.
Networked maps are explained and defined as cartograms that are the graphic expression that results
from the interpolation made by the GIS model of the variables described and evaluated according to
the criteria explained in chapters 5 and 9.
A recalling reflection of the general purpose of the thesis and the essential meaning of three interre-
lated sets of concepts that we explore further is made there, relating them to the proposed notion of
transversal connectivity and the tool provided by the GIS model, the TCC or Transversal Connectivity
Cartogram.
Chapter 9 is devoted then to the explanation of the cases studied, where we include a brief general
description of the areas studied, the study of a ‘control area’ where we have empirically found desirable
conditions of pedestrian connectivity and the cases studied in the Northern Arc area of Querétaro, that
are believed to be examples of urban entities that are typical in the diffuse and fragmented modern
city: a case of an urban stitch, on an urban fracture; the cases of a retail parking, an industrial brown-
field area and the cases of a gated community, a shopping mall and a linear park.
The study of all these cases includes the observation of transversal connectivity before hypothetical
interventions by (networks of) urban projects and the evaluation after it, comparing connectivity con-
ditions with those of the control area, using the graphic interface we have called Transversal Connec-
tivity Cartogram or TCC.
What cartograms show are patterns of complexity, generated by the potential interaction of people
with the urban space. In a way this conclusion is directly related to the position taken about the live
relationship that patterns (of complexity or others forms of organization) have with structure (the
urban space where those patterns take place).

Propositions within this thesis

Theoretical cycle

Fragmentation in the city has contributed to fragmentation in the patterns of organization of our
society in economic, social and environmental terms. Fragmentation is ought to be treated as a
spatial (structural) and social (patterns of organization) problem.

The negative cycle of fragmentation can be broken into a positive cycle of integration by means of
urban projects, concrete interventions in the urban space, and can help harmonizing urban form
from economic, social and environmental points of view, besides of the spatial.
Being the spaces of mobility a strategic crucible of disciplines, fields of study, and interesting
people, transport, information, the study of the ways we consider mobility is relevant in the meas-
ure it can provide us with new strategies of what, where and how to connect the fragmented
city.

Chapter 1: Introduction 27
 New and exciting perspectives for connections appear in our time, with the simultaneous emer-
gence of the information technologies, scientific principles of urban structures and discoveries on
the organized complexity of networks.

With the emergence of the network as a paradigm, the scientific study of the city has now to pro-
duce new tools for observation and assessment of the organized complexity phenomenon.

Through the study of networks and with tools as the Geographic Information Systems, the condi-
tions for connectivity can be observed and assessed.

Empirical cycle

Urban projects are catalysts of the configuration of structures and patterns of the city. In the last
30 years, in Querétaro, these catalysts have been oriented to sprawl, since this is a convenient
model for speculation with land.

The specific form of urban projects is useful to determine quantitatively some features of the
project. However, we think that in order to assess network features of a set of projects, such as
nodal density, a fundamental ingredient of complexity in the neighborhood and larger scales, the
program is also relevant.

Spatial and informational fragmentation can be solved with spatial and informational accessibil-
ity.

Plenty of work is to be done in order to change the growth paradigm of the built environment
to the reality of the true urban fabric with the three Aristotelian characteristics of the classic city:
size, density and heterogeneity, plus a fourth fundamental: organized complexity.

Cartograms might be new tools for decision making actors in the form-giving process of a city but
we have to bear in mind that they are not direct or “literal” maps of networks; they are rather a
graphic manifestation of the potential of interactions that can be generated in an urban network.
What cartograms show are patterns of complexity, generated by the interaction of people with
the urban space.

The study of patterns of complexity is a new avenue for research.

The combination of the visualization of patterns and complexity and the anticipated materializa-
tion (design) of a given urban intervention has enormous potential.

Transversal connectivity cartograms are in a way, maps of the genetic code of cities; they can be
used as evaluators of the quality of space that a given intervention will deliver, by comparing the
patterns obtained by a proposal with the patterns obtained from the study of areas with desirable
connectivity, vitality, accessibility, and a number of other features.

28 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Endnotes
1. Mintzberg, H. (1990) Strategic Planning, in Brouwver, Hulsbergen and Kriens (2004) Strategy.
Spatial Planning Monograph 2. Section Spatial Planning, Department of Urbanism, Faculty of Archi-
tecture, TU Delft.

Chapter 1: Introduction 29
30 Connectivity-oriented urban projects
Theoretical Cycle
31
32 Connectivity-oriented urban projects
2 Fragmentation as a problem statement

Analysis

1 Introduction to the chapter

In this chapter, we aim to establish the issue of fragmentation as a common condition in the city of
today, transcending the still common divide between the studies of so called ‘developed’ cities and
‘developing’ cities (Graham and Marvin, 2001).

After setting a conceptual position of interrelationships between structure, patterns, meaning and
process in the introduction to this thesis, in this second chapter we argue that a scientific approach
to the study of both the urban structures and the patterns of organization of their users is needed.
We accordingly propose the introduction of a new scale for ergonomics, a discipline that has almost
always has dealt with objects and their working relationship with their users, in what we have called
urban ergonomics, the theoretical relationship between the urban structures and the patterns of
organization of their users, the citizens. This relationship goes beyond the concept of use, to a more
holistic concept of function, which includes in the equation structure and meaning, in addition to
use. To support this proposal, this chapter contains an analysis of the relationship between urban
structures and their corresponding patterns through history; this analysis, and the conceptual model
adopted, provide the elements to state that cities’ physical structures and the patterns of organiza-
tion of their users are interdependent and evolve dynamically one in terms of the other.
With urban ergonomics as a reciprocal study of patterns and structures, we analyze the emerging net-
worked structures and patterns of the typical city of the beginning of the 21st century, a ‘splintered’
city whose segmented structures drift everyday more and more apart from their users, following a
pattern of sprawling growth that may benefit only a very few in detriment of the large majorities.
Spatial fragmentation in the city can be then stated as a problem, due to the unsustainable nature
of its corresponding economic, social and environmental patterns. We point out a probable future
for sustainability related to urban conditions, taking in one hand fragmentation and its correspond-
ing patterns (probable quality) and in the other, the projection of growth of urban population in the
world for this 21st century (urban quantity).
To finish this chapter, we explain why, with a need to focus in this thesis, we have chosen to concen-
trate on the phenomenon of fragmentation caused by infrastructures of auto-mobility overimposed
in the urban fabric, as a specific approach to urban fragmentation.

Splintered by the over-imposition of a number of technological infrastructures, in which mobility infra-

structure takes an important role (Graham and Marvin 2001), or increasingly segregated by global
socio-economic phenomena (Castells 1996), the space of our cities today is disconnected more than
ever, seen from economic, social and environmental perspectives. In spite of the emergence of a
series of new global-virtual connections, a perverse process of local-physical fragmenting structures
and patterns has taken place in our cities. This problem needs new instruments of spatial planning
and design to be modified, for the sake of sustainability of our civilization.

Chapter 2: Fragmentation as a problem statement 33

 Fragmentation is the sign of the times in the city of the beginning of the 21st century (Graham and
Marvin, 2001). Extreme urban fragmentation of today is a result of the exacerbation of a condition
that has always existed in the city (Kostof, 1991) plus the interrelation of a number of factors:

Spatial fragmentation.
While speaking about fragmentation in the city, Petros Petsimeris, quoting Max Weber, said that we
have to make a distinction between city and urbanization; city is continuity, while urbanization alone
is only growth. In a way, this statement reminds of the difference between generated and fabricated
structures suggested by Christopher Alexander in The Nature of Order.
Anthony Fielding provides a more operational definition when he says that the city of today can be
seen in terms of urbanization and counter-urbanization: ‘the inverse correlation between the size of
the city and the net-migration of the city’, where the positive correlation is equal to urbanization and
the negative correlation is equal to counter-urbanization.
The modernistic planning rule of separation of functions, produced new infrastructures that in one
sense connected, but in many others, fragmented urban tissues around the world. The global con-
temporary city became more fragmented spatially by the overimpositions of transport infrastructure
since the 19th century, first in the form of railways and later of motorways.
Now, the city is even more fragmented, forming an archipelago of small urban islands, sometimes
in the form of gated communities sometimes as irregular settlements and other forms; it is frag-
mented by the proliferation of scale-versions of commercial centers, typical of the north-American
city suburb, thought to ease accessibility to automobiles; by small groups of commercial locals that
erase the sidewalk, against the pedestrian as well, &c. Increment of population in cities came along
with decrement in density, producing sprawl.

Social fragmentation.
Demographic explosion, which has produced (mechanical) growth rather than (organic) develop-
ment, is the first factor that comes to mind when speaking about sprawl. Social fragmentation has to
do with the segregation of social layers in the urban territory, a situation that has certainly existed in
cities since remote times, but becoming more acute in the “global city” where there are every time
less public spaces to host social mixture.
According to Dempsey and Hassan (2004), elements of urban form that contribute to social sustain-
ability are density, land use, housing types, urban layout, and transport infrastructure. Social aspects,
which are likely to be influenced [by fragmentation], in the urban form have been identified as acces-
sibility, fear of crime, community stability and participation, social network and sense of place. The
lack of accessibility is the most recurrent problem described in Dempsey and Hassan’s work and it is
probably the main factor of social segregation due to spatial fragmentation.
Making an analogy of the city with organic structures, Capra says that while a cell creates a boundary
– the cell membrane – that confines it and gives it its identity, social boundaries are not necessarily
physical boundaries but boundaries of meaning and expectations. They exist in a mental realm that
does not have the topological properties of physical space. (Capra, 2002, p.88).
The fragmentation and individualization of labor and the gradual dismantling of the welfare state
under the pressures of economic globalization means that the rise of global capitalism has been
accompanied by rising social inequality and polarization. “Areas that are non-valuable from the per-
spective of informational capitalism, and that do not have significant political interest for the powers
that be, are bypassed by flows of wealth and information, and ultimately deprived of the basic tech-

34 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

nological infrastructure that allows us to communicate, innovate, produce, consume and even live in
today’s world” (Castells 1998).

Economic fragmentation.
The city of today is a reflection of the society organised as a mechanism for capital accumulation.
(Marisa Carmona, at the 2004 DSD Inaugural Conference).

Global capitalism has increased poverty and social inequality not only by transforming the relation-
ships between capital and labor, but also through the process of “social exclusion”, which is a direct
consequence of the new economy’s network structure. As the flows of capital and information inter-
link worldwide networks, they exclude from these networks all populations and territories that are of
no value or interest to their search for financial gain. As a result, segments of societies, areas of cities,
regions and even entire countries become economically irrelevant.
Furthermore, the speculative model of growth, that has produced generous surplus value (for a few)
has consistently impulsed sprawl, which is prejudicial for majorities and for environmental sustain-
ability. This is an example of a pattern of behaviour compelling the development of a spatial struc-
ture. Economic fragmentation is in conflict with positive financial cycles, it prevents the investments
that are made in the city to reach a larger number of social layers, mostly the less favoured. Economic
fragmentation means investments being done in closed cycles, speculative in general, which have
contributed to the growing separation between rich and poor and to the trend of the disappearing of
the middle-class. Castells believes that virtually all nations and cities are being penetrated by social
and geographical logics of disconnection as ‘redundant’ devalued labour that is of no functional use
to the logic of network society – typically manual labour in barrios, ghettoes and favelas – becomes
more and more distanced from formal circuits of social and economic life (not just in the city, but
globally). Such groups face the collapse of employment prospects and worsening poverty (Castells
1998).
There is a growing competition between cities, between cities and suburbs, with growing contradic-
tions too. Society is taking exceptions, depleting resources, destroying the environment. The general
economic conditions are of uncertainty and insecurity, growing inequalities and ecological threats
(Beck, 1992).

Environmental fragmentation.
A break-up with the environmental dimension began with the modern and modernistic assumption
that humankind would control [dominate] nature through technology. Cities, as houses, would be
conceived as “machines” for living. However, through their fragmented and linear processes, cities
consume and deplete vital resources from the environment in an unsustainable way. Water scarcity,
global warming through the winter-garden effect etc are somehow effects of a fragmented (mecha-
nistic) vision of the city. Ecological fragmentation is known by the circumstance of the polluting city,
the insatiable consumer of regional and extra-regional resources, in which little or no efforts have
been seriously done to reduce, reuse and recycle. With the sprawl model, expansion has a very nega-
tive impact in environmental conservation. It increases the land used as gray areas in a non-necessary
way, dispending territory for the sake of the speculative model.

Chapter 2: Fragmentation as a problem statement 35

 The paradox of fragmentation by globalization.
This kind of fragmentation doesn’t mean anything else but fragmentation by the explosion of global
capitalism.
As we have seen, over-imposition of global networks on local structures (Sassen, Castells, et al.), that
has occurred mostly without benefit for local economic cycles. This is a problem of disconnection
between the layers in which global and local networks operate. The paradox is that in the so-called
age of globalization, there is a recurrent feature in our cities, fragmentation.
Around the world, a new impoverished segment of humanity has emerged that is sometimes referred
to as the Fourth World. The new geography of social exclusion includes portions of every country and
every city in the world (Castells, 1998).
The Fourth World is populated by millions of homeless, impoverished and often illiterate people who
move in and out of paid work, many of them drifting to the criminal economy. Once their poverty
turns into misery, they may easily find themselves caught in a downward spiral of marginality from
which it’s almost impossible to escape. Manuel Castells’ detailed analysis of these disastrous social
consequences of the new economy illuminates their systemic interconnections and adds up to a dev-
astating critique of global capitalism. (Capra, 2002, p.145)
Global capitalism does not alleviate poverty and social exclusion; on the contrary, it exacerbates
them. It has been blind to these effects because corporate economists have traditionally excluded
the social costs of economic activity from their models (Capra 1982). Similarly, most conventional
economists have ignored the new economy’s environmental cost – the increase and acceleration of
global environmental destruction, which is as severe, if not more so, than its social impact (Capra
2002, p.146). Capital is global while labor, as a rule, is local. Thus, capital and labor increasingly exist
in different spaces and times: the virtual space of financial flows and the real space of the local and
regional places where people are employed; the instant time of electronic communications and the
biological time of everyday. (Wenger 1998, in Capra 2002).
Thus the new economy causes environmental destruction not only by increasing the impact of its
operations on the world’s ecosystems, but also eliminating national environmental laws in country
after country. Again according to Capra (2002), environmental destruction is not only a side effect,
but is also an integral part of the design of global capitalism.

Configuration and disfiguration of the contemporary city.

Christine Boyer argues that contemporary restructuring trends are supporting the divergence of what
she calls the ‘figured’ city from the ‘disfigured’ city. The figured city is the city ‘composed as a series
of carefully nodes generated from a set of design rules or patterns’. It is fragmented and hierarchized,
like a grid of well-designed and self enclosed places in which the interstitial spaces are abandoned
or neglected’. It is in short, the highly valued archipelago of spaces and zones – financial and corpo-
rate districts, heritage zones, leisure, media and cultural areas, malls, festival market places, theme
parks, affluent housing zones, hospital and university districts, research and development campuses,
high-tech business parks, etc. – that are the focus of customised infrastructure development. As well
as being favoured by unbundled infrastructure connections – airports, fast highways, telecommuni-
cations, energy and water – the figured city is ‘imageable and remembered’ to affluent and upper-
income populations who live, work and play within it.
On the other hand, though, there is the disfigured city: the ‘abandoned segments’ that surround
and interpenetrate the figured city. Remaining ‘unimageable and forgotten’, the disfigured city is is
largely ‘invisible and excluded’. As ‘the connecting, in-between spaces’ with the weakest and most

36 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

vulnerable network infrastructure, the disfigured city remains easily forgotten by powerful groups
inhabiting the figured city (Boyer, 1995, 81 in Graham and Marvin, 2001).

The figured and disfigured cities are therefore obviously disconnected from each other. The discon-
nected city of today is a consequence of the uncoordinated way in which economic and social proc-
esses occur. While the economy has become dependent largely in global capitals that operate in a
network that most of the times is separated from the space where social processes take place (mostly
cities we could say). This implies the surging of structures for ‘global’ patterns over the already exist-
ing ‘local’ structures. The problem is that both kinds of structures are overimposed, not connected.
We see great attention to connecting parts of cities and certain urban spaces to distant elsewheres whilst,
at the same time, there is a widespread parallel collapse of the notion of the integrated, coherent city served
by single, harmoniously developed infrastructure networks (Graham and Marvin, 2001).

At the beginning of the 21st century, and speaking in terms of networks, cities in general present spa-
tial, social, economic and environmental fragmentation, a problem which in its complexity is prob-
ably the main hole in the network for sustainability.

2 Urban Ergonomics
We will now approach the study of the complex functional relationship between the city and infor-
mation about its users – people –, what we have called urban ergonomics, as a generic approach to
constructing a vision of fragmentation versus connectedness in the city. Urban ergonomics deals, on
an urban scale, with a discipline commonly related to product design, also known as human engi-
neering, human factors engineering, user-centred design or inclusive design, which is about ensuring
a good fit between people, the things they do, the objects they use and the environments in which
they live. Because ergonomics is a discipline of functional relations, we will try to establish the impor-
tance of bringing ergonomics to an urban spatial scale, by analyzing its functional components (use,
structure and meaning) and the relationships between them and people.
Fragmentation has become a fundamental theme of interest in the study of the city and (we may say)
an urgent one to be better understood as a problem to be addressed by spatial design and planning
and other means for the sake of sustainability of urban communities. Jane Jacobs has recently written
(Jacobs, 2004) that decay and fragmentation of ‘social pillars’ such as family and community present
a clear threat of a “dark age ahead”. A good part of these presently fragmented socio-spatial patterns
is an effect of a fragmented structure in the human physical environment (the city). Fragmentation in
the city can be explained, studied and even reduced through an ergonomic approach to the relation
of the object (the city) and the user (people), corresponding to a relation of structure and patterns.
Fragmented patterns develop fragmented structures and vice-versa, fragmented structures produce
fragmented patterns. Moreover, fragmentation as a spatial phenomenon grew considerably with the
economic expansion that came along with the colonization of new territories, the development of
the printing press and the rise of capitalism since the 15th century. This phenomenon has been exac-
erbated in the 20th century, on the one hand by overwhelming (urban) population growth and on
the other by the management of this growth by a mechanistic approach, the modernist culture of the
machine in spatial planning and design. We illustrate below these ideas with pictures of structures of
cities (or aerial pictures), relating them to concepts and pictures of patterns and structures.

Urban Ergonomics: the integrated study of structures and patterns in the City

Chapter 2: Fragmentation as a problem statement 37

 Urban Ergonomics and the Function of Designed Space.
“Ergonomics is designing to suit people,”1 a definition that might as well encompass the city as a
complex artefact designed supposedly to suit people, a supposition that rarely becomes true, at least
for the majorities. Due to fragmentation and particularly intellectual fragmentation, urban structures
and users of the city are studied by separate.
As Whitfield and Langford2 point out, most people have heard of ergonomics and think it is some-
thing to do with seating or with the design of car controls and instruments, which is not a complete
definition. Ergonomics has to do with the application of scientific information concerning humans to
the design of objects, systems and environment for human use. Therefore, ergonomics is involved with
almost everything physical that has functional relationship with people3 . We observe a great need to
bring ergonomics to bear on information concerning people, to the disciplines of spatial design and
planning. This is not only in the utilitarian sense of use, but also in the other senses of structure and
meaning, that together imply function. Ergonomics is a functional discipline.
Function4 , from the Latin fungi, ‘perform’, means to carry out or accomplish an action or task. We
understand that the function of Architecture and Urban Architecture is to provide structure5 that
fulfils a given use6 , and comprise meaning . Structure, meaning7, and use are intricately connected to
each other in a process in this concept of function of space, and urban ergonomics has to do with all
of them.
Structure is about how space is built. In an analysis of the spatial design8 practice, we may observe
that scientific information is currently being applied to the structure component of function. New
knowledge has been constantly developing, since the Industrial Revolution in construction technol-
ogy in order to seek efficiency and continuous improvement in the economic cost-benefit relation-
ship. Scientific information applied to construction has been developed in the form of new techniques
to approach the built environment through civil, traffic, municipal, marine, systems, mechanical, elec-
tronic and other branches of engineering. The spatial design disciplines have followed engineering
by applying the new technologies of construction but, lamentably developing structure in a separate
track from other components of space. In the last century, engineering has steadily built structure
(what we are generally used to call infrastructure9 ), sharing with the spatial design disciplines mostly
a common disinterest of each in what the other does, with certain exceptions from the architectural
practice, such as the case of Louis Kahn. However most of these exceptional cases were interested
in its meaning than in the structure itself, like Le Corbusier. Following this separation trend regard-
ing structure or the way space is being built, the multidisciplinary nature of ergonomics (sometimes
called ‘Human Factors’) becomes immediately necessary.
Ergonomics uses teams that may involve a variety of professions: architects, design engineers, pro-
duction engineers, industrial designers, computer specialists, industrial physicians, health and safety
practitioners, and specialists in human resources. The overall aim is to ensure that our knowledge of
human characteristics is brought to bear on practical problems of people at work and in leisure. We
know that in many cases, humans can adapt to unsuitable conditions, but such adaptation leads often
to inefficiency, errors, unacceptable stress, and physical or mental cost10 .

In the space for human function, organization endows structural information with meaning, which
in turn connects spatial objects with the human mind without the need for conscious reflection. In
general, when a system recognizes a structured entity in the environment, it attributes meaning to it.
Organisms create communication signals that have a special structure, which is to say that they share
a common language. Languages are characterized by collections of rules defining syntax and seman-
tics. The form of the built environment (in the urban context is composed by buildings, streets, paths

38 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

and even pavements) conveys meaning to our awareness. In simple terms, the cognitive ‘fit’ between
people and the things they use… and yes, the spaces they dwell in.
Relevant topics of information to be applied in spatial design are sensory processes, perception, long-
and short-term memory, decision-making and action. There is also a strong thread of organizational
psychology that could very well have a point in the social organization of cities.
The importance of the psychological dimensions of ergonomics should not be underestimated in
today’s ‘high-tech’ world. For instance, ergonomics advises on the design of interfaces between
people and computers (Human Computer Interaction or HCI), information displays for industrial proc-
esses, the planning of training materials, and the design of human tasks and jobs, but it has seldom
entered into the field of urban or architectural space, the interface between people and the city.
Human Space Interaction or HSI is a field to be scientifically explored to generate applicable knowl-
edge. Ergonomics has special importance today regarding meaning expressed in spatial terms. Little
or none scientific information is being applied in spatial design related to the meaning of the environ-
ment for people. Due in part to the lack of ergonomics in spatial design, meaning has been removed
from the built environment by eliminating information encoded in surfaces and space which would
normally connect an individual to a structure through mental associations. We seek meaning from
our environment and are repelled by environments that convey no meaning, either because they
lack visual information, or because the information present is unstructured. Klinger and Salingaros
(2000)11 , write that the importance of urban space was lost in the 20th century when the philosophi-
cal emphasis on meaning structures shifted from the space between buildings, to the pure geometry
of buildings standing in isolation, when the focus of attention was set in objects rather than contexts.
They also argue that today’s architects are trained to use a limited vocabulary of simple forms, materi-
als, and surfaces and that their possible combinations are insufficient to even approach the structure
of a language. This trend replaces an historical accumulated literature of patterns corresponding to
words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters and books that encapsulate meaning from human experi-
ence and life. Again, ergonomics, or the application of scientific information concerning humans in
the design fields, is urgently needed in spatial design disciplines.
The human brain is constantly trying to turn sensory data into meaning, to organize information into
patterns. Every element in an urban setting has a meaning insofar as it relates to human activities.
These activities are what we call use. Designed space is meant mainly to fit with human activities, and,
use is the basic functional component of space. We even designate names for spaces after the uses
we give them; we are used to calling the spaces in a house living, dinning, reading rooms and so on
because they are meant to fulfil such activities.
This utilitarian relationship of the object of design and the activity of the user is the basis of ergonom-
ics, that deals with the interaction between technological and work situations and the human being.
In utilitarian terms, sciences such as anatomy, physiology and psychology, are applied by ergonomics
towards two main objectives: the most productive use of human capabilities, and the maintenance
of human health and well-being. The job (or use) must ‘fit the person’ in all respects, and the work
situation should not compromise human capabilities and limitations.
Underlying all ergonomic work is careful analysis of human activity. It must understand all of the
demands being made on the person, and the likely effects of any changes to these demands. Another
aspect is to understand the users. For example, ‘consumer ergonomics’ in marketing and product
design covers applications of ergonomics to the wider contexts of home and leisure. In these non-
work situations, the need to allow for human variability is greatest. This commitment to ‘human-
centred design’ exerts an essential ‘humanizing’ influence on contemporary, rapid developments in
technology, in contexts ranging from the domestic objects to all types of industry to human space12 .
The focus of scientific information on an urban scale has been biased to the uses rather than the users
in the last decade. For instance, globalization and technological innovation have changed the way

Chapter 2: Fragmentation as a problem statement 39

 people, goods, and information move through and about cities. Cities have been adapting “to remain,
or become, economically and environmentally sustainable by creating cutting-edge infrastructures
that integrate advanced technologies, communications, and multiple modes of transportation”13 .
The role of urban ergonomics emerges here as that of equalizer of the application of scientific infor-
mation to users and uses in designed spaces.

Users generate a constantly changing set of patterns of uses. We observe the world around us and
learn its structure by abstracting cause and effect, and by documenting recurring solutions obtained
under different conditions. Such empirical rules, representing regularities of behaviour, are called
“patterns”. Patterns have been scientifically studied by Alexander and Salingaros that in a way are
pioneers in urban ergonomics. Yet, the scientific information that those studies have generated has
not reached a wide application to contemporary urban and architectural spaces.
A pattern language contains useful connective information that helps both to validate the patterns,
and to apply them.
There should always be an explanation that supports a pattern: statistical data; a scientific analysis;
discovering the simultaneous occurrence of this pattern in totally different cultures; psychological,
structural, or cultural reasons. We could graphically link behavioural patterns to architectural patterns
directly14 .
After more than a century of a fragmented modernist view of the function of space (form followed
function, or better said, form followed use), there is a need to look at the function of space in a holistic
way, trying to understand the complex relationships of the form of space to its functional compo-
nents of use, structure and meaning, and finding a way to bring the spatial disciplines closer to users,
to rediscover a path that brings designers closer to people. Urban Ergonomics, the scientific study
and application of patterns of people’s behaviour (study of users) applied to people’s spaces, can
provide that path.

3 Fragmented Structures and Patterns: Fragmented City

We need to balance the study of structure with the study of form (or pattern). In the study of struc-
ture, we measure and weigh things. Patterns however cannot be measured or weighed, they must be
mapped, and they have to do more with quality. To understand a pattern we must map a configura-
tion of relationships15 . Structure involves quantities, while pattern involves qualities (Capra, 1996).
We believe in the concept of the city as an organism, not only in the sense that it may have an organic
structure, but also because of the complex relationship of this structure with the patterns of organiza-
tion of its users.

The thought of an urban agglomeration generally brings to mind a graphic evocation that most of the
time has the form of a map, maybe mixed with street-level sights or images that reinforce the image-
ability of it (Lynch, 1962). Lately, this graphic evocation has taken the form of an aerial view of the city
as in several recent books and exhibitions of artistic representations that depict cities or countryside
in this way, still reinforced by images of landmarks16 and more recently with the upcoming of the
fantastic Google Earth service in the Internet. Thanks to the increasingly accessible technology of sat-
ellite imaging, we have the chance to see the city in top-shot-pictures with colourful, quite illustrative
features. We now can look at lively photographs of our most remarkable achievement as a civilization,
the city17 . We enjoy photos of cities that convey a sense of an unexplainable order, like that of Venice
(Ill. 1), in which a complex structure and harmony appear at first sight.

40 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Figure 1:
from the air. IKONOS satellite image provided
by GeoEye.

Illustration 2:
Ernesto Philibert
Petit Petit, based on
the work of Francesc
Magrinya

Chapter 2: Fragmentation as a problem statement 41

 Even though Venice is structured by water canals, a condition that may suggest a disintegrated
archipelago, from the air the city looks fully and harmoniously connected, in contrast with Venice’s
‘modern’ links with terra firma, the railway terminal and the parking and port facilities to the north-
west, that look rather like a steel prothesis inserted in organic tissue. In Venice most streets and canals
are not straight and the urban trace follows a natural order, corresponding more to fractal than to
Euclidean geometries.

The territory is undergoing a new spatial organization marked by a double process of fragmentation of
settlements and individualization of relations. Francesc Magrinyà

Reflection on concepts introduced by Francesc Magrinyà drove me to consider the complex relation-
ship between patterns and structure, applied to spatial organization through time18 . Two kinds of
spatial organization structures are defined by Kostof, the “organic” and the “mechanical”, in the sense
of Lavendan’s ville spontanée and ville créée.
According to their origin, the organic spatial structure is mainly a bottom-up process, while the
mechanical is always top-down, regardless of the time period when the city was structured19 . Our
analytic matrix includes four periods of time: the pre-industrial, before 1450; the industrial period
from 1450 to 1900; the machine age, which could be considered as part of the industrial period, going
through the entire 20th century; and the most recent period, the “age of the globalized society” start-
ing circa 1980.
In the pre-industrial city, cities had a small size, less than 100 thousand inhabitants, no specialization,
and little social and spatial mobility in the regional, global level, but a high spatial mobility in the
pedestrian level. Regarding the industrial city, some authors distinguish
a) a capitalist industrial city, where urban land is a source of income, ownership is divorced from use
and property is a means to produce rent, normally with segregation of uses; and
b) a socialist industrial city, with the abolition of property, where mostly central planning determines
the city.
In the table, the structures of spatial organization confront a series of patterns that model spatial
organization: geopolitical, power exertion and relationships; morphology orientation; physical
relationships; and territorial ideal. (These spatial patterns were inspired by Magrinya’s table quoted
above). With the idea of advancing in the discussion of urban ergonomics, structures and patterns, I
have added the notions of patterns of behaviour to our matrix. That is, patterns of thought and pat-
terns of values of the “form-giving actors” of the city. Examples of city structures throughout geogra-
phy and history provide added commentary on this matrix.
We have found examples of the organic/bottom-up kind of spatial structure along a universal time-
line starting with the first cities registered in the Neolithic period through modern times. The second,
mechanical/top-down kind is found in our timeline ever since patterns of colonization first appeared
in history. Thus, we have models of this mechanical structure dating from the imperial periods of
Greece or Rome or China until today, 100 years after an exacerbated mechanical structure of cities
has been imposed by the machine culture of modernist thoughts and values. This last period has
been decisive in configuring the structure of present day cities and those of upcoming years. In the
near future, spatial fragmentation may become the ultimate consequence of the recent past or it may
be the period when the emerging paradigm of networks could be wisely used to connect our spa-
tial structures and patterns again instead of working in favour of fragmentation. If connected spatial
structure models responding to social, economic and ecological contexts (and patterns) exist, then
we can illustrate how the fragmented city corresponds to opposing social, economic and ecologic
conditions.

42 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 3: Illustration 4:
Erbil, Iraq. Morris (1997), p.22 Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic. Morris (1997),
p.156

Illustration 5: Illustration 6:
Favelas in Brazil. Taken from Yannarthusbertrand. San Gimignano, Italy. Taken from Benevolo (1979-
com 3) p. 44, 45

Illustration 7: Figure 8:
Nanterre, France. Taken from Benevolo (1979-5) Structure of Venice. Taken from Benevolo (1979-3)
p.226 p. 103

Chapter 2: Fragmentation as a problem statement 43

 The spatial model of the city is not separable from economic, ecological and social patterns and it will
be an important factor of the configuration of civilization and its features in the coming age.

As we can see in the following table, the generation of structures, both material and social [patterns]
is a key characteristic of the dynamics of social networks, of culture and of the origin of power (Capra,
2002: 90). (Ill. 2)

Spatial structures and patterns of the natural city.

Natural spatial structures represent the ordinary urban form before the industrial iterative production
model began to gain ground in the 15th century. Before this date, it is possible to find common fea-
tures of natural spatial structures, independent of their placement in space or time. These structures
correspond to a non-linear organic form, an apparent intricate web of elements consistent with an
order more appealing to intuition than to reason. They were constructed using an intuitive, bottom-
up model of “planning”; and stem more from collective thought than from decisions of individuals, as
it happens in the top-down model of planning. Spatially, the structure is based on borders, a physi-
cal form clearly corresponding to patterns of values of association, conservation and collaboration.
These patterns can almost be inferred from of the picture of Erbil (Ill. 3), in the Iraqi Kurdistan, where
the Tell (the prominent structure in the centre) has been inhabited for 8,000 years. The structure of
Erbil has a physical relation of proximity, responding to a territorial ideal of concentration. Power
exertion in this structure is generally feudal (from the Latin feodum, fee), with a power relationship
based on delegation. In a way, this model of power exertion is cooperative; the notion of fee is closer
to bottom-up cooperation than that of tax, which corresponds to a top-down imposition. Once more,
this associative pattern of value is reflected in the structure of the city. We can qualify its form as asso-
ciative rather than dissociative. See for example the structures of Algier’s Casbah, or the old city of
Cesky Krumlov, in the Czech Republic (Ill. 4) or even the pictures of favelas and informal settlements
(Ill. 5) which also belong to this structural model; they demonstrate patterns of association and col-
laboration.
The mathematical structural organization resulting from this set of values and the bottom-up plan-
ning approach is a lattice or semi-lattice (see Christopher Alexander’s A City is not a Tree), an organi-
zation with a high number of connections. This sense of connection can also be inferred by looking
at the pictures of examples like either Medieval San Gimignano, Italy (Ill. 6) or the modern slum of
Nanterre (Ill. 7), near Paris.
The morphology of the natural city is plot-oriented, i.e. with a clear place definition; the city as a place
presents clear borders. Thus, the natural city structures present a stable pattern of space-time rela-
tionship, even though they suggest an internal dynamic and lively set of relationships produced in
great measure by the mixture of uses (and users) within the city.
In the frame of the industrial age, we call natural city structures those cities that have managed in one
way or another to preserve the bottom-up continuity of the original ‘organic’ plot; like Venice (Ill. 8),
with the structural exception of the superimposed link with the mainland mentioned before, a prag-
matic, top-down infrastructural intervention, or Salamanca, Spain (Ill. 9), which managed to conserve
its organic structure throughout the 19th century.
Once the industrial age started, the natural structure was either mixed with or erased by modern struc-
tures (and patterns) that we will analyze below. A structural substitution arrived after the “machine
age” in the contemporary age of the “globalized society”, when bottom-up organic or natural struc-
tures in the city belong mostly to irregular, illegal settlements of the ‘disfigured’ city similar to rural
settlements in ‘underdeveloped’ contexts, as in Bandiagra, Mali (Ill. 10). This kind of settlement

44 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 9: Illustration 10:
Salamanca, Spain. Morris (1997: 170) Bandiagra, Mali. Yannarthusbertrand.com

Illustration 11: Illustration 12:

Mileto. Taken from Benevolo (1979-2: 112) Naarden, The Netherlands. Morris (1997: 186)

Illustration 13: Illustration 14:

Palmanova, Italy. Morris (1997: 193) A military camp structure, used by Christopher
Alexander to illustrate the concept of tree.

Chapter 2: Fragmentation as a problem statement 45

 is omnipresent in the developing world but also appears in cities of the developed nations. They are
a consequence of an ever-expanding pattern of socio-spatial segregation20 .

Spatial structures and patterns of the artificial city.

We call artificial city structures (and their corresponding patterns) those with a mechanical21 defini-
tion, with a top-bottom approach to planning. The artificial city is designed purposefully, responding
mostly to patterns of expansion, competition and dominance as in the cases of many cities estab-
lished through colonization (economic expansion) throughout history and worldwide.
In order to establishing colonies, the colonizers - empires, states and city-states - have resorted to
establish bases for their expansion everywhere. For instance, imperial Greece established colonial
cities in Mileto (Ill. 11), imperial Rome in Tarragona, Lutetia (Paris), or Newcastle (Britain) and later
imperial Britain in Hong Kong, New Delhi and Savannah, Georgia or imperial Spain in Veracruz,
Mexico, Buenos Aires, Argentina or Trujillo, Peru.
Regional competition between the city-states of Florence and Siena fostered the establishment of a
number of outposts in Tuscany just as global competition for new territories since the 15th century
in Europe22 has provoked the establishment of hundreds of bases (cities to-be) from Nova Scotia to
Patagonia in America, along the coast of Africa and in Asia. The value pattern of dominance (almost
always coexisting with patterns of expansion and competition) has influenced the form of structures
as well, in cases ranging from military posts and forts to fortified towns like Naarden (Ill. 12) near
Amsterdam or Palmanova (Ill. 13) near Venice, both designed in the early industrial age. The rigid hier-
archical tree structure of the military camp (Ill. 14) like the one presented by Christopher Alexander in
A City Is Not A Tree, that belongs to a set of expansion, competition and dominance values with a very
limited number of connections, has given form to a great number of cities or parts of cities through-
out history, perhaps to most of the urban territory of the world.
The pattern of power exertion in the artificial structure of spatial organization is guided by capital,
as the power relationships are guided by property. In fact, models of artificial structures have repeat-
edly the use of land as an instrument for capital accumulation. The organizational patterns of this
structure are based on transport. Consequently, its morphology is oriented to transportation of com-
modities, more than to people’s needs. The explosion of industrial capitalist development can explain
the emergence of these two features (land speculation and transport orientation) of the artificial city.
The structure of early 20th century Chicago (Ill. 15), shows how urban sprawl is born as a result of
transportation-oriented morphology in combination with a speculative grid.
While proximity is the dominant physical relationship of the natural city, accessibility dominates the
artificial city, the territorial ideal for this feature being the grid. However, the notion of accessibility
has been distorted and complicated by the imposition of land-use separation in the city, a prod-
uct of the modernist age23 , admiration for movement and mobility, plus the enhancement of the
‘expansive’ values mentioned above and the haughty notion that Man could dominate nature by
mechanical means. All of these factors contributed to the patterns of the Machine Age and conse-
quent reflections of it in city structures.
Throughout the 20th century, a Cartesian, mechanistic, sectorial (or fragmented) view of the city has
prevailed due to the modernist cult of the machine. There is a radical, observable difference between
cities conceived before and after the machine culture. By machine culture, we understand Western
civilization’s fascination with the alleged power and dominance of man over nature that the new
industrial economy had brought by means of the ultimate mechanical artefact, the machine. The
culture of the machine has also been a very convenient means for industrial capital to grow exponen-
tially during the 20th century; it has developed within a behavioural cultural pattern that has shaped

46 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 15: Illustration 16:
Chicago, United States. Taken from Benevolo Antonio Sant’Elia’s conception of the city. Taken
(1979-5: 96) from www.sant-elia.net

Illustration 17: Illustration 18:

Le Corbusier’s 1925 Plan Voisin for Paris . Fonda- Fritz Lang’s 1927 Metropolis. Museum of Modern
tion Le Corbusier, Paris. Art, New York.

Chapter 2: Fragmentation as a problem statement 47

 new urban spaces in a century when urban population grew more than in its whole previous history.
This means that the machine paradigm has shaped the form of most of our built environment.
With the coming of the machine culture, starting with the futurists almost a century ago and pro-
moted by Le Corbusier, the Charter of Athens and the CIAM since 1933, the concept of city form has
changed. Conceived as being separate from people’s patterns of behaviour, structural changes have
brought drastic transformations in behavioural patterns for the use of the city. Perspective images of
futuristic cities not actually built but present in our consciousness through their public diffusion, like
Sant’Elia’s 1914 conception of the city (Ill. 16), are evidence of the culture of the machine. Examples of
a long series of other mechanical images regarding city form include Le Corbusier’s 1925 Plan Voisin
for Paris (Ill. 17) and Fritz Lang’s 1927 Metropolis (Ill. 18), both icons of this culture. After them, archi-
tecture and urban design came down with iconitis17 , an illness aggravated to-date.

Machines for living.

Powerful images have proven to be only that, images. The culture of the machine has made a
great impact in our concept of a city as ‘Western’ civilization. We can cite it as a fundamental
concept as much as 45 years after the Plan Voisin was issued, when the models for new cities in
either developed or developing countries still clearly reflected the culture of the machine, as it
is evident in the plans of Brasilia, Brazil (1957) (Ill. 19), Chandigarh, India (1951-1965) (Ill. 20) and
Milton Keynes, a New Town in Britain (1970) (Ill. 21). The structures of these three artificial cities,
belong undoubtedly to a mechanical image, with trees as a structure of organization. The spa-
tial organization patterns seen in the drawings are transport oriented, with power exertion by
capital and property, with a physical relationship guided by accessibility. Their corresponding
pattern of thought is rational and linear.

Illustration 19:
Lucio Costa’s 1957 Structure of Brasilia. Departa-
mento de Patrimonio Historico e Artistico, Gov-
erno do Distrito Federal, Brazil.

Illustration 20:
Structure of Chandigarh. Fondation Le Corbusier,
Paris.

48 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Illustration 21:
Structure of Milton Keynes. Benevolo (1979-5), p.
202

Structures and Patterns in the Age of Globalization:

The figured and disfigured city.
It is significant that with all their powerful influence and logic, the ‘modern’ machine-cities cannot
match the perceptible visual harmony and sense of connection of the ‘organic’, bottom-up planned
city. There definitely are differences between the first two presented spatial structures, the natural-
organic and the artificial-mechanical, in the natural-organic city the dominant land-use pattern is
mixed, while in the artificial-mechanical city the land use pattern is segregated. But there is a feature
of the contemporary city, in the “globalization era” that has become even more prominent in recent
years: fragmentation.
A sign of our times is the lack of connection, neither spatial nor economic nor social in the contem-
porary city. We are dealing with a physical fragmentation that goes with the dissociation of local pat-
terns and global structural networks as well as local structures in cities that present global patterns.
With the advent of the globalized society, with fragmentation as a recurrent condition, there is a
growing gap between two city forms: figured and disfigured.

4 The Splintered City at the beginning of the XXI Century.

The generic city at the beginning of the new millennium is in a word, splintered, a feature that corre-
sponds to the second and third stages of the cycle of life of the city through history (Petsimeris) that
can be observed in four stages: urbanization, suburbanization, de-urbanization and re-urbanization.
After about a century after Henri Poincaré’s defined a series of terms to picture coherent space featur-
ing tri-dimensionality, continuity, contiguity, and homogeneity; at the beginning of the 21st century
we observe a rather different series of picturing definitions of the city: tri-dimensionality plus tempo-
rality, discontinuity, non-contiguity and heterogeneity.

Networked structures and patterns.

There is a growing recognition within social theory of the networked nature of marginality and exclu-
sion (Lash and Urry, 1994; Castells 1996; Thrift, 1995).
The network (intra) city / network of (inter) cities concept is an emerging notion strengthened by the
“new” science of complexity and networks and the development of Information Technologies (IT).
Spatial organizations of this emerging paradigm are yet to be defined; in the last quarter of a cen-

Chapter 2: Fragmentation as a problem statement 49

 tury, new features of structures and patterns in the city have been appearing. The new geopolitical
organization of city/cities is globally based on telecommunication networks while locally based on
more or less artificial structures. Power exertion occurs through financial networks operating globally
with rather whimsical disconnections from local economic structures and political organization. The
new power relationships are based on transactions, a rather insubstantial concept operating simul-
taneously over systems that still have the property of a power relationship factor. The new spatial
configuration of the city is network-oriented, seeking to position itself as a node in the global system.
(If you are not a node, you are nothing). Physical relationships in the network city are defined rather
by global links instead of local accessibility and/or proximity and the new territorial ideal is to be con-
nected, whatever this may mean spatially. (Ill. 22)

Illustration 22:
A view of spatial segregation, a common place in
the city of the late 20th century. Ernesto Philibert
Petit

In their book, Splintering Urbanism, that has set a landmark in urban studies at the beginning of the
XXI century, Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin develop a robust approach to understanding the
changing relations between contemporary cities, infrastructure networks and technological mobili-
ties.
They argue that a parallel set of processes are under way within which infrastructure networks are
fully ‘unbundled’ in ways that help sustain the fragmentation of the social and material fabric of cities.
They claim to having reconceptualized the relationships between infrastructure services and the con-
temporary development of cities. According to the authors, Splintering Urbanism leads to four clear
conclusions as to how we might understand the linkages between fragmenting cities and unbun-
dling infrastructure networks:

1. Interdependence between the ‘urban’ and the ‘infrastructural’, or the ‘social’ and the ‘technical’.
This mutual construction makes functionalist separations of ‘city’ and ‘technology’ pointless.
2. Urban infrastructure networks are only ever temporarily stabilised.
3. The central dynamic of urban fragmentation and infrastructural unbundling is thus a reduction of
emphasis on standardized connective fabrics within cities.
4. The emphasis on dynamically working through social relations in action, rather than the use of
elementary and ossified notions of scale, space, technology, the city, agency, structure or identity
(Graham and Marvin, 2001).

50 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Logics of Disconnection
The construction of spaces of mobility and flow for some, however, always involves the construction of bar-
riers for others. (Graham and Marvin ,2001).

The disconnected city of today is a consequence of the uncoordinated way in which economic and
social processes occur. While the economy has become dependent largely in global capitals that oper-
ate in a network that most of the times is separated from the space where social processes take place
(mostly cities). This implies the surging of new structures for ‘global’ patterns over the already existing
‘local’ structures. The problem is that both kinds of structures are overimposed, not connected. We
see great attention to connecting parts of cities and certain urban spaces to distant elsewheres whilst,
at the same time, there is a widespread parallel collapse of the notion of the integrated, coherent city
served by single, harmoniously developed infrastructure networks (Graham and Marvin, 2001).
To Manuel Castells (1996, 1997a, 1998 in Graham and Marvin, 2001) it is the remarkable growth in the
application of information technologies and telecommunications that is the prime supporter of the
shift towards an integrated, global, ‘network society’. The uneven architecture and variable geometry
of this society are necessarily about the application of these technologies to help splinter and frag-
ment urban space.
In Mike Davis’ scenario (Davis 1992, 6 in Graham and Marvin, 2001), the concentration of new net-
worked infrastructures into the valued peripheries of cities, backed up by private capital, repressive
policing and special infrastructural measures, leads to the collapse of the coherence of the old city, as
global capital and wealthier social groups flee. Global economic convergence may, according to this
argument, parallel local social divergence.

5 Fragmentation as a problem statement.

In today’s reality the building blocks of the city are radically divided from each other and their scale enor-
mously varied. This is due to the effect of the physical, social, economic and cultural fragmentation of soci-
ety on space. (Christiaanse, 2001).

It is our idea that, to define a problem regarding a given phenomenon, basically three things are
needed:
a) A theoretical explanation of the phenomenon,
b) Hard data relatable to the observed phenomenon, and
c) An axiological position about the phenomenon.

a) A theoretical explanation
Having fragmentation analyzed as a spatial and its corresponding social, economic and environmen-
tal interrelated phenomena; having set a conceptual position about the reciprocal relationships of
urban structures and their patterns of use, proposing an integrated approach (urban ergonomics);
having done an historical review of structures and patterns with other variables like the bottom-up
or top-down origins of urban configuration, we can start to build-up a problem statement about
fragmentation:
Fragmentation is at the same time a problem of urban structures as well as a feature of economic,
environmental and social patterns of organization, which are unsustainable.

Chapter 2: Fragmentation as a problem statement 51

 Most of the cities in the world present growth as a recurrent condition, and in these cases, the more
disjointed the city grows, the more disconnected or fragmented are the social groups, the more polar-
ized are the economic processes and the more the environment is affected by the city growth.

b) Some figures about cities growth

From the beginning of civilization to the end of the 18th Century, a maximum of 1000 million people
inhabited the Earth, a 20% of them, living in cities and the rest in the countryside. Thus, 200 million
people lived in cities by 1800. The 19th Century built city for as much as 300 million inhabitants, since
in 1900, 500 million people lived in cities, while the 20th Century had to build city for 2500 million (!)
people because the urban population in 2000 was of ca. 3000 million.
The World population is estimated to reach 10,000 million by 2050 and ca. 50% of them will live in
cities for a total of 5,000 million citizens. In less than 50 years from now, humankind will have to build
city for as much as 2,000 million new citizens in the planet. This means having to build nearly a 70%
more urban territory than the one we had in 2000 in the World, plus rebuilding a large part of the
splintered city, due to its unsustainability. In 50 years we will have to build almost the same urban
structure than we did in the whole last century. The question, rather being quantitative, is about qual-
ity: How are we going to build it? Fragmented? Is that the probable future?
When Johnson writes about the property of some cities keeping their shapes (Johnson, p.105), he
must be writing about cities (urban structures) with at least a hundred years. This should account
for a very small percentage of the currently existing urban tissue, modeled mostly after modernist
principles25.

c) An axiological position about fragmentation

The present conditions of fragmentation in the city seem to be valuable for a relatively small number
of persons. The analysis made in this chapter points out that a small number of individual nodes in the
urban global networks, be them spatial, social or economic nodes, have become exponentially richer
in detriment of spatial, economic, social and environmental conditions of large majorities of people
inhabiting cities. Thus, a very small number of persons have taken benefits from the fragmented con-
dition of the city. Fragmentation is important to them. This small group of persons generally is per-
sonified by urban speculators (developers, investors) or by industrial capitalists; for instance recall the
large impulse the automobile industry has given to the corbusian principles of use separation in the
“modern” city, one of the most powerful roots of fragmentation. In recent times, the global financial
network has become a new entity for which fragmentation is a fertile condition for operation too.
However, fragmentation is not a sustainable model for cities. It is not a sustainable model for the poor,
middle class or rich social layers. It is not a sustainable model for humankind. We can declare fragmen-
tation as the anti-value of sustainability.
After more than 10 years in which we have been studying the rather complex subject of sustainability
and moreover, adopting it as something important for us, we can otherwise declare connectedness26
as a strong value for the form-giving of the city in the years to come.
Patterns of use modify structures as well as structures condition patterns of use. Sustainable patterns
of use can be achieved by introducing, producing and constructing sustainable, connected struc-
tures.

52 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

6 Mobility as an approach to urban fragmentation
The construction of spaces of mobility and flow for some, however, always involves the construction of bar-
riers for others. (Graham and Marvin ,2001).

Before leaving the analysis of fragmentation, there is a need to focus on a given area of this phenom-
enon, in the realm of this thesis. We have decided here to focus on fragmentation in urban tissues by
the juxtaposition of structures for mobility.
Mobility is one of the most critical issues for spatial design and planning to approach in the coming
years.
It is of fundamental importance to further understand the complex implications of mobility as an
agent in the configuration of the space in which we live, mostly urban in these days. The key to this
enhanced relevance of mobility is its inexorable condition as a function of space and time, which
distinguishes it from other subjects of study in the spatial disciplines. Time brings the perspectives of
people to spatial design and planning, their patterns of organization, and their processes of interact-
ing with physical and virtual space, and mobility is directly involved in them all. Moreover, we will put
into consideration the concept of mobility with a third main component adding to space and time:
information, a concept which contributes in making mobility an even more critical issue. -
But first, I propose a brief contextualisation in reference to four reasons that support this considera-
tion of mobility in the analysis of fragmentation: the current fragmented reality of our space as we
have analyzed above; the emerging network paradigm as a conceptualisation tool of mobility; the
recent scientific discovery of principles of the urban structure and the opportunity we can find in the
spaces of mobility as subjects of intervention to achieve connections needed for the sustainability
of our civilization. Next, we explain the perspective from which these factors are observed and then
get into the body of this work by constructing a scaffold to develop a specific theoretical framework
(network) of mobility in which we may find also-theoretical connections that might constitute meta-
mobility (where we consider how do we approach mobility). These connections can help us to con-
struct an agenda for the future in city form-giving which is eventually the object of this thesis.

Four factors stand out in the context in which mobility is studied here:
1) The recurrent condition of fragmentation in today’s urban realm.
Splintered by the over-imposition of a number of technological infrastructures, in which mobility infra-
structure takes an important role (Graham and Marvin 2001), or increasingly segregated by global
socio-economic phenomena (Castells 1996), the space of our cities today is disconnected more than
ever, seen from economic, social and environmental perspectives. In spite of the emergence of a
series of new global-virtual connections, a perverse process of local-physical fragmenting structures
and patterns has taken place in our cities and needs new instruments of spatial planning and design
to be modified, for the sake of sustainability of our civilization.

2) The study of networks, part of the complexity theory, that is emerging as the new paradigm of con-
ceptualising the world. Networks appear to be pervasive in both nature and human society (Bucha-
nan 2002). In less than a decade, a number of scientific discoveries have emerged in relation to this
pervasiveness of networks in different realms of our world (Barabási, Buchanan, Capra, Johnson, Stro-
gatz, Watts, et al.), a few years after Dupuy and Drewe had suggested the use of networks as a tool for
the research of new spatial planning and design concepts (Dupuy 1991, Drewe 1997) and Castells

Chapter 2: Fragmentation as a problem statement 53

 had written “The Rise of the Network Society”. Networked models of reality are finally here to help us
understand how a city works, the organized complexity problem foreseen by Jane Jacobs in 1961.

3) Scientific discoveries on principles of the urban structure recently made (1998-2004) by Nikos Sal-
ingaros. Their importance in the future of the study and form giving process of the city is paramount.
The principles have “rules [which] are derived from connective principles in complexity theory, pat-
tern recognition, and artificial intelligence” (Salingaros 1998). Professor Salingaros has demonstrated
that any urban setting can be decomposed into human activity nodes and their interconnections
which might be treated as a mathematical problem. His theory relates the network approach with
scientific rigueur to the study of the city’s complexity and thus brings scientific basis for spatial inter-
ventions.

4) The possibilities that urban spaces of mobility offer, seen as opportunities to reconnect urban tis-
sues spatially and from their economic, social and environmental perspectives. New relationships are
to be found in the conceptualisation of mobility and its spaces in the city, to provide some of these
opportunities. Thus, a central issue in this work is connectivity. “A central component of the human
intellect is the ability to establish connections. Urban design is most successful when it establishes a
certain number of connections between activity nodes” (Salingaros 1998).
This thesis deals with a theoretical search for connectors in-between the study of subjects of mobil-
ity (people, goods and information) and the realms in which it has impact, namely spatial, economic,
social and environmental, in a range of spatial scales.
In other works, I have taken an approach to the subject of study in the twofold sense of structures and
patterns, as Anthony Giddens defined the relationship of social structures and human agency (Capra
2002: 78): “the interaction between social structures and human agency is cyclical…social structures
are both the precondition and the unintended outcome of people’s agency”. We have stated that pat-
terns of fragmentation had built up structures of fragmentation, which in time, are developing even
more fragmentation in the patterns of use of our cities, however considering the actions in the flow
of human conduct to have a transformative capacity, which can be either an opportunity or a threat.
Urban spaces of auto-mobility, hitherto causing great impact on fragmentation, are an adequate,
strategic subject of study in the research for new connections.

7 Conclusions
Fragmentation of the city structures has contributed to fragmentation in the patterns of organization
of our society. Hence, economic polarisation, social segregation and environmental disruption are
causes but at the same time effects, since there is a cyclic process between structures and patterns.
The central enterprise of current economic theory and practice – the striving for continuing, undiffer-
entiated economic growth – is clearly unsustainable, since unlimited expansion on a finite planet can
only lead to catastrophe. Indeed at the turn of this century, it has become abundantly clear that our
own economic activities are harming the biosphere and human life in ways that may soon become
irreversible (Brown, 2001; Gore, 1992; Hawken, 1993).
The critical issue is not technology, but politics and human values. And these human values can
change: they are not natural laws. The same electronic networks of financial and informational flows
could have other values built into them (Capra, 2002:141).
Connecting the spatially fragmented entities can help reduce fragmentation in social organisation
patterns. When fragmentation is the first preliminary conclusion of observation and interpretation,
it is time to seriously consider connecting as a strategy for city planning and design. New scientific

54 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

knowledge is here to orient connection processes in the form of the emerging science of networks.
It is time to counteract the patterns of fragmentation of our society, by introducing new kinds of
connection in our structures. The ultimate fate of global capitalism may well be, as Manuel Castells
puts it, “the social, cultural and political rejection by large numbers of people around the world of an
Automaton whose logic either ignores or devalues their humanity (Castells 2000a).

Rejection has already begun.

Endnotes
1. Reg Sell, Past President and External Relations Officer, The Ergonomics Society, 2002
2. Whitfield, David and Langford, Joe in Blakemore, C. and Jennett, S. Eds. (2001). The Oxford Com-
panion to the Body. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wojciech Jastrzebowski created the word
ergonomics in 1857 in a philosophical narrative, “based upon the truths drawn from the Science of
Nature”. (Jastrzebowski, 1857)
3. Human factors (or human factors engineering) is an alternative term for ergonomics and is more
commonly used in the United States. Although some people perceive human factors as a broader
discipline than ergonomics, authoritative sources, such as The Ergonomics Society and the Oxford
English Dictionary, confirm that the two terms are interchangeable.
4. Oxford English Dictionary
5. .e. are constructible, cum-structure, with a structure.
6. Use is here understood as the vitruvian utilitas, to sustain the utility that any space for human func-
tion should have.
7. Meaning is the third component of architectural function. Spatial Design has, among others, a task
to accomplish, communication with people.
8. Spatial design is understood here as encompassing both architecture and urban design, from the
scale of an object (which is considered to be more in the field of industrial or product design), to
the scale of a city and beyond, to the scale of the region and the network of cities. All these scales
involve space for human function.
9. If structure is the protagonist of the city of the 20th century, at the beginning of the 21st it appears
to be a star. It is indisputable that during the 20th century, what used to be ‘infrastructure’, struc-
ture mostly under ground level, became a prime component of our built environment and thus,
more likely to be called ‘structure’.
10. These few lines above, intended for product and industrial design scales, are also applicable to
other spatial design disciplines like architecture and urban and regional planning and design.
11. Klinger, Allen and Nikos Salingaros (2000). “A Pattern Measure”, in Environment and Planning B:
Planning and Design, volume 27 (2000), pages 537-547.
12. Structured with definitions from the Ergonomics Society, http://www.ergonomics.org.uk/ergo-
nomics.htm
13. Richard Hanley (2003) Moving People, Goods and Information. The Cutting-Edge Infrastructures of
Networked Cities. London, Spon Press).
14. Salingaros, Nikos (2000) “The Structure of Pattern Languages”. http://www.math.utsa.edu/sphere/
salingar/StructurePattern.html
15. This concept is applied in chapter 9, mapping a configuration of relationships in a GIS.
16. See for example, work by Yann Arthus Bertrand, http://www.yannarthusbertrand.com/
17. Let us remember that the words civilization and city derive from the same Latin root, civitas.

Chapter 2: Fragmentation as a problem statement 55

 18. Concepts derived from a table presented by Magrinyà in a lecture about Barcelona and Cerdà in
June 2004, in Delft, Holland.
19. Top-down refers to a hierarchic planning method, belonging to the decisions of a few individuals
in contrast with the emergent bottom-up method that comes out of the sum of collective deci-
sions.
20. For instance, there are alarmingly growing figures of people living in irregular settlements in Latin
American cities. According to Carmona (2005), Mexico has a 19.8 of its overall population living in
irregular settlements, Brazil, the 36.6%, Bolivia, the 61.3% and Peru, the 68.1% (!).
21. From the Greek mekhane, machine.
22. Kingdom-states like Spain, Portugal, Britain, France or the Netherlands became imperial forces
starting in the 15th century.
23. Physical and non-physical separation or division of uses and users since early times in the city has
been documented by a number of authors. However, the phenomenon was accelerated in cities
with the rise of the machine age in the early 20th century.
24. “…iconitis is the illness of today’s architecture”. Michael Mehaffy
25. We have to take into account that the urban population of the world when modernist ideas
appeared was of ca. 500 Million soaring to ca. 3000 Million (a 50% of a total World population) in.
This means that ca. 5/6 of the built environment of today has been built during the 20th century,
probably under modernistic criteria or as slums or detached suburbs.
26. In this thesis, we understand connectedness as the state of connection of spatial structures as well
as the state of connection of economic, social and environmental patterns. We understand con-
nectivity as potential connectedness.

56 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

3 Connective Urban Projects

Design

1 Introduction
Urban projects, as an inductive form of city making are here considered as a feasible tool for achieving
sustainable urban development. After failure of traditional deductive instruments in controlling or at
least orienting urban development and having received loads of criticism for its recurrent disconnec-
tion from the local realities when devised unilaterally by a top-down model, urban projects appear
now as an instrument in the city’s local realm to connect needs and aspirations of its citizens with
resources and attention from global networks, which generally operate under they own norms and
codes. Moreover, in its design stage, urban projects are a concretion-providing instrument by visualiz-
ing the possible future qualitatively as well as quantitatively and even more, they can be established as
objective targets to place resources generated by alternative forms of financing urban development,
like the capture of surplus value, an opportunity to transcend the limited and partial vision of growth,
to a more inclusive, equity-seeking perspective of development.
After defining the what, why, where and who’s of the urban projects in the thesis, this chapter examines
an inclusive perspective for them in a holistic form-giving process of the city. It makes as well a reflec-
tion on the origin of this possibility by the empowerment of local instances by the global trend of de-
centralization. Although it is a reality that currently many local governments operate under the model
of the growth machine, structured by the urban regime theory, of which we will make references later,
urban projects can be a local response to globalization, if it can be found out how to harmonize them
with general top-down planning guidelines, how to overcome constrains to urban productivity and
most important, how to achieve alternative ways of financing the development that otherwise local
governments would not be able to afford with their ordinary revenues. We think that urban projects
can be programmed in those three directions, adopting a method, like Paul Drewe’s reference (1993)
to Mixed Scanning, which puts into play both top-down and bottom-up approaches. Furthermore, we
propose a fundamental subject for the agenda of urban projects: connectivity.

This chapter is somehow anecdotic if not illustrative of the process the research of this thesis has
followed. We present what we called transversal projects for the proposals for the route studied in
the First International Architecture Biennial, Mexico Avenue 2030 two years ago, because they were a
designer’s reaction to the fragmentation found in the city early in the research development. These
early transversal projects however had the essence of what the main hypothesis and the notion of
connectivity and of connected scales are in this thesis. I can say that these last two more evolved notions
were detonated on my first personal interview with Nikos Salingaros, a few months after the Biennial
was over when I was seeking out for advice on how to measure connectivity before and after the inter-
ventions proposed in the Mexico Avenue project.

We here examine the transitions within this research from dynamic scales to connected scales and
from transversal projects to transversal connectivity by urban projects. To say it briefly, connected
scales refer to the holarchic organization of the complex system the city is and transversal connectiv-

Chapter 3: Connective Urban Projects 57

 ity is understood as the study of the connections of a given node with smaller scales, which as I said,
emerged as a primary and mostly intuitive concept after the observation of fragmentation in the urban
tissue in Mexico City while working in the proposals for the Biennial.

With the intention to illustrate the concept of transversal connection, we finally present in this chapter
some cases of transversal connective urban projects through history (from Ponte Vecchio to Orange
County). Conclusions are drawn at the end of this design focused chapter, preceding the next, strategy-
phase, boarding connections in chapter 4.

Urban space definitions for this thesis

In this thesis, urban space is not only the space between buildings in a city. It involves also the
buildings and its configuration, the public, semi-public and semi-private spaces. Moreover, pri-
vate spaces participate as well in the concept of urban space as an important part of its configura-
tion. With this definition, any intervention at any scale affects the whole and is important.

The interior logic of a city’s disorderly grid is fundamentally about movement, so that many prop-
erties of urban space are a product of these connections (Hillier, 1996; Hillier and Hanson, 1984)

The transportation network defines city form; a city lives and works according to its network of
connective paths (Alexander, Neis et al., 1987; Hillier, 1999; Salingaros, 1998). In addition, it will
have pedestrian life if its urban spaces accommodate and support pedestrian paths (Alexander,
Neis et al., 1987; Gehl, 1987; Hillier, 1997; Salingaros, 1999).

As soon as we grasp that a living city is not composed of buildings just sitting next to each other,
but that the life of a city arises from its ensemble of connections, then the need for the geometry
to accommodate those connections becomes paramount. One starts to think of more complex,
interweaving geometrical configurations that might support multiple connections, and to look at
urban examples from the past that were successful in doing so (Salingaros, 2000a).

Urban space is defined by convex outdoor regions that are partially -- but not totally -- surrounded
by the exterior walls of buildings. Each region of well-defined urban space, however small or
modest, needs to be connected into a network of pedestrian paths, and this process linearizes
and channels the urban space. Hillier and Hanson (1984) determined precisely this structure in
a detailed analysis of living pedestrian environments in many different urban cultures. They cor-
related the degree of social and community life directly with the intensity of the connective net-
work of urban space (Salingaros, 1998).

58 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

2 What are urban projects
Urban projects are concrete interventions (planned or built) in the urban space. Architecture could be
(but it seldom is) seen as an urban project.

Scales of urban projects

There is the common idea that an urban project is such that can affect a city or a large part of a city
(Iracheta, in Carmona 2003) and thus, the belief that an urban project belongs to a large-scale. How-
ever, there are urban projects (i.e. urban interventions) in a large variety of scales: an urban project
can be one in the inter-personal (the smallest urban scale), ranging in scale up to the regional, which
is the immediately larger scale to the metropolitan (the largest urban scale). Large urban projects have
captured the attention of the studies in urbanism since they have somehow displaced the traditional
master-planning schemes as a way to give form to the city.
Regarding large urban projects, Carmona (2003) proposes a three-scale typology of large-urban
projects based on Borja and Castells (1999): the regional (metropolitan), the urban and the local, which
are understood as institutional, administrative and operational scales:

1. In this vision, the metropolitan scale corresponds to the strategic vision of the area, which implies
strategic co-ordination and the position of agglomeration in the urban network. The regional scale is
ideally oriented towards a futurist scenario based on social, environmental and cultural objectives.

2. The urban scale corresponds to the urbanized area, with large urban projects related to strate-
gic programs to improve the position of the city in the global market, to increase productivity and
improve city networking between various activity nodes. Large Urban Projects in the urban scale are
linked to image change, provision of high-tech office and service infrastructure of international stand-
ard, improved infrastructure and communications, accessibility and overall mobility. They include the
creation of new functions for derelict land and the city, the use of vacant land and potentially produc-
tive land (ports, factories) and imply city modernization, the creation of landmarks and networks of
public spaces and green areas. These strategically managed interventions take into account project
feasibility, project management, and impact analysis; they mobilize private and public initiatives, and
contain elements of image promotion and inter-sectorial co-ordination and are linked to city market-
ing programs.

3. Interventions at the local scale are those which, although they are small-scaled and targeted
actions, have a strategic function in urban development. They are oriented towards improving ‘image’,
tackling shortages, improving multifunctional activities or other objectives based on the existing
dynamics of the city. Local strategic interventions range from the revitalization of neighborhoods, to
the opening up of a new commercial corridor, the development of tourist or recreational resorts, or the
rehabilitation of the historic centre.

According to Lungo, the first issue that emerges from a discussion of large-scale projects has to do with
the ambiguity of the term and the necessity of defining its validity. Size is a quantitative dimension,
but scale suggests complex interrelations involving socioeconomic and political impacts. The wide
variety of feelings evoked by large projects shows the limitations in being able to restore a vision of
the urban whole and at the same time its global character (Ingallina 2001). This issue has just begun to
be discussed in Latin America, and it is framed in the transition to a new approach in urban planning,

Chapter 3: Connective Urban Projects 59

 which is related to the possibility and even the necessity of constructing a typology and indicators for
its analysis. Issues such as the emblematic character of these projects, their role in stimulating other
urban processes, the involvement of many actors, and the significance of the impacts on the life and
development of the city are all part of the discussions.
Nevertheless, it is the scale, understood as being more than just simple physical dimensions, that is the
central core of this theme.
Since the scale of these projects is associated with complex urban processes that combine continuity
and changes over the medium and long terms, the timeframe of their execution must be conceived
accordingly. Many of the failures in the implementation of such projects have to do with the lack of a
managing authority that would be free or protected from the political volatility of local administra-
tions over time (Lungo 2002).
In this thesis, the concept of scale of urban projects is dynamic. We consider urban projects as concrete
interventions in the city, starting from the interpersonal scale at 3 – 10 m and up to the scale of the 100
– 300 m. The interventions in the scales are interconnected in a fractal fashion (Salingaros); we also
consider the interventions at the smaller scale (the interpersonal scale) to be the most important for
connectivity and also the most numerous, according to the power-scale law distribution of sizes. These
ideas are further discussed in chapters 4 and 5.
In the projects designed for the first Rotterdam Architecture Biennial in 2002-2003, we incorporated
an elementary concept of dynamic scales, a connection between the scales at the site of the project.
This permitted interesting findings to surge in the process. De Jong says that “identical spatial patterns
allow different conclusions to be drawn when elements are involved in the consideration using a differ-
ent scope” ( De Jong, 2002: 37), which was proven by the design team while using the dynamic scales
approach, however, as the research went deeper (chapters 4 and 5) to find out that the urban web is
organized in a fractal fashion and is holarchically ordered, we confirmed that scales are not independ-
ent but interdependent and they should be considered so in a design process of urban projects. Thus,
after the feedback, the projects, presented in chapter 7 are networked at the scales mentioned (from
3-10m up to the scale of 100-300m).

Globalization has brought among other things a phenomenon of de-centralization of decisions from
the central governments to the state and finally municipal authorities in recent years. Being used to
government paternalism and to follow decisions taken outside of their local sphere, local governments
in developing countries and particularly Latin America are starting to learn how to cope with this
resource de-centralization, which brings along the need to obtain resources independently for sustain-
ing municipal operation. Studies on the ways local governments have been acting at the force of the so
called market economy or (according to George Soros) “market fundamentalism” have showed pledge
to a New Urban Policy by following the Growth Machine theory, that considers land as a commodity that
may produce wealth and power to their owners: developers, real estate agencies and banks, with poli-
ticians, press and service agencies (water, transport, electricity, gas) completing the so called “growth
coalitions” or by means of the Urban Regime theory that explains the existence of networks of private
interests which surround and complement governmental performance (Cuenya 2003).
These factors have opened a debate on more appropriate forms of political leadership and govern-
ment agreements (governance1 ).
Through specific, bottom-up generated urban projects, cities may have the chance of choosing
between a growth (global) scheme and a development (local) one in years to come. The difference is
that growth seeks quantity and development quality. Urban projects from the perspective of growth
are fabricated, and urban projects from the perspective of development can be generated, with good
chances of achieving adequacy of the local to the global, and coping, again from the bottom-up with
the so called constrains to urban productivity: technical infrastructure, stiff regulations, lack of hous-

60 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

ing and the local taxation capacity (Carmona 2003). Urban projects can be connectors between local
and global and generate positive economic cycles. For instance, existing in some countries of Latin
America since a long time ago, the capture of surplus value as an instrument for urban development
is combined with urban projects can be of high potential for achieving an economically sustainable
urban development with reliability and accountability, by precisely establishing the destination of
labeled resources.
Urban projects can be a new approach to land regulation and strategies (Carmona 2003) if they are
devised from the perspective of local networks and certainly taking into account the global. Urban
projects can become instruments for improving governance when devised bottom-up and integrated
into a harmonic process along with planning (top-down) guidelines, since they represent tangible
goals that come from a common vision. According to Carmona, they can help establish a control of
externalities, contribute to the regulation of public services, and collaborate in the control of land
speculation by improved taxation schemes. They can even provide a source of compensatory direct
subsidies and be by themselves instruments for controlling urban form (Carmona 2003).
There is a social responsibility in constructing a common vision of the future of the space in which
communities live and so, there is a need of accountable information on problems (probable futures)
and solutions (possible futures).

3 Why urban projects

“…what is convergent is the space of global capital whereas communities in different locales are diverg-
ing. Is the only counterforce to the convergence of global capitalist interests the tribalist fragmenta-
tion of these diverging communities: guarded and fenced off from one another, crammed in between
the barriers of high speed traffic and humming to the deafening sound of electronic highways?”
Roger Keil (1994, 131, in Graham and Marvin, 2001)

I want to think not. Cities or citizens are to react to counterforce that global convergence in ways that
are not yet explored. The answer to the question represents a challenge to open and develop new
research avenues in urban form-giving. Urban projects can be the answer when acting as catalysts for
local spatial connectivity that is correlated to economic, social and also environmental connectivities
when programmed in such direction. On the other hand, urban projects currently are a recurrent way
of making cities, due to the forces of globalization, the phenomenon of the “new urban regime” and
the lack of attention from local governments to the issue of affordable housing, resulting on the known
phenomenon of the emergence of irregular settlements in different measures, but almost everywhere
in cities over the world.
There is a number of reasons why to take into account urban projects into a more holistic way of making
city to counterforce the current fragmenting conditions of the city of the 21st century:

1. Urban projects may balance the top-down, de jure hierarchic process of making city not by substi-
tuting it but by integrating it into a holistic form-giving process, in the sense of “mixed scanning”.
2. Because of their typical function as real estate developments and infrastructure projects
3. Urban projects can improve governance
4. Urban projects can help control urban form, or better said, can be an important factor in the guide-
lines and emergence of the city form
5. Because either standing alone or networked, urban projects are tools for a strategic construction
of the city.

Chapter 3: Connective Urban Projects 61

 6. Because urban projects, as concrete as they are, are subject of assessment previous to their realiza-
tion: a most useful feature for taking decisions.

Top-bottom / bottom-up form-giving models

I think of the word form-giving as an integration in between the top-down planning and the bottom-up
emergence. Form-giving is also in between of the (according to Christopher Alexander) fabricating of
the form, which is obviously mechanical top-down and the generating of it, which is organic bottom-
up.

Thus, the process of form-giving of the city in this thesis is understood as the third-way, the harmoni-
zation of top-down and bottom-up models. Of course, this idea brings urban projects to a new level
of formalization in its many interconnected scales; this brings on an obligation of considering urban
projects not only as isolated “urban acupuncture” interventions but as a network of interventions.

A ‘soft’ look to top-down and bottom-up interaction.

The early work of Christopher Alexander regarding the organization of the complexity of cities
understood by means of patterns and pattern languages is of fundamental importance to archi-
tecture and urbanism that however, have been submerged in a sea of individualism, ‘iconitis’ and
fragmentation of the disciplines. The new science of computer systems has adopted many of
the concepts that Alexander has developed with much success, because it happens that both
software and cities are complex systems. The next paragraph makes reference to top-down and
bottom-up models of giving form to a system…

“…in the top-down model an overview of the system is formulated, without going into detail for
any part of it. Each part of the system is then refined by designing it in more detail. Each new part
may then be refined again, defining it in yet more detail until the entire specification is detailed
enough to begin development.
By contrast in bottom-up design individual parts of the system are specified in detail, and may
even be coded. The parts are then linked together to form larger components, which are in turn
linked until a complete system is arrived at.
Top down approaches emphasize planning, and a complete understanding of the system. It is
inherent that no coding can begin until a sufficient level of detail has been reached on at least
some part of the system. Bottom up emphasizes coding, which can begin as soon as the first
module has been specified. However bottom-up coding runs the risk that modules may be coded
without having a clear idea of how they link to other parts of the system, and that such linking
may not be as easy as first thought.
Modern software design approaches usually combine both of these approaches. Although an
understanding of the complete system is usually considered necessary for good design, lead-
ing theoretically to a top-down approach, most software projects attempt to make use of exist-
ing code to some degree. Pre-existing modules give designs a ‘bottom-up’ flavor. Some design
approaches also use an approach where a partially-functional system is designed and coded to
completion, and this system is then expanded to fulfill all the requirements for the project.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottom_Up.

62 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

In the proposed form-giving model, urban projects have to be networked in different scales, which
should be also connected between them. We will come back to the issue of connected scales later on
this chapter.
A comprehensive form-giving process has been proposed by Drewe (1993): it is called mixed scanning.
The scheme “assumes interaction between strategic visions and strategic projects. At the stage fol-
lowing an analysis of the economic, ecological and socio-cultural qualities, goals are formulated and a
spatial-functional vision of development for the region is formulated. The development perspectives
are translated into actual projects”…

“We call these projects ‘strategic’ because they have to be understood within the wider context; they
have to serve the same the same purpose and cannot be considered separately from each other.
Together, the projects have a much larger effect than each project would have on its own. By develop-
ing this vision into projects, the feasibility of each project, and thus also the feasibility of the vision is
tested. In this way, a top-down and a bottom-up exchange takes place in a cycle of adaptation. Thus,
by undertaking a number of smaller strategic operations [(projects or interventions)], a larger target,
and the strategic vision can be achieved” (Drewe, 1993).
According to Lungo (2002), the challenge is to design the project to be compatible to with the established
approach to city planning strategies. In our design proposals, the projects correspond to a general strat-
egy of connection. In the projects for the Biennial, the transversal projects were devised to solve a
program for the connection of the urban tissue. The projects for Querétaro, presented in chapter 7, are
coherent with a general strategy for the city: Conectando Querétaro, which is directed to improve the
overall connectivity and connectedness of the urban fabric.

Real estate developments and infrastructure projects

According to Carmona (2003) large urban projects can be identified functionally as real state develop-
ments and infrastructure projects. “In the first instance, there are projects which are related to provid-
ing functions and places that involve land use and real estate management and in the second instance,
sectorially-based infrastructure, transport, communications projects that involve accessibility and the
capture of surplus values. The greatest majority of large urban projects are public initiatives”.
These catalyst and detonating features are not exclusive for large urban projects; in fact small urban
projects, at the scale of the interpersonal space can perfectly function as real estate developing cata-
lysts or as detonators for developing infrastructure if they are networked and much more numerous
than large projects in a given sector of the city. In fact, a central idea in this thesis is that a network of
urban projects can connect the fragmented city. The best working conditions for this hypothesis is
when urban projects are connected in scale and distributed in number accordingly to the power-scale,
which we will explore later in chapter 5. Also, the connection between “detonators” or “catalysts” can
and should be taken in the economic sense between scales; to foster the development of local positive
economic cycles (see point 4).

Governance
Carmona (2003) proposes other ways of viewing the function of urban projects as instruments for
improving governance and controlling the urban form, while Lungo (2002) suggests, regarding urban-
istic norms and regulations that “the challenge here is to avoid the creation of norms giving privileges of
exclusiveness to the project”. This is perhaps the major challenge of governance by urban projects, due
to the current dominating conditions of the “new urban regime” which allows a few developers and
investors to have direct incidence in the decisions of the city planning, norms and regulations.

Chapter 3: Connective Urban Projects 63

 About the incorporation of stakeholders, Lungo says that the challenge is to incorporate all the par-
ticipants involved directly, in particular the not so identifiable groups indirectly affected by these projects
(Lungo, 2002). A method increasingly used for incorporating the stakeholders in defining a vision is the
charette, a workshop to develop a common vision, by design; this is, by synthesizing the abstract con-
cepts of the stakeholders in a concrete vision of the possible future. This is a clear task for design and
for designers in the process, after an honest definition of the parties involved directly and indirectly as
participants, active or passive in an urban project and its impact.

Control of urban form

Lungo poses a challenge to urban projects as to integrate the project into the existing urban fabric (Lungo
2002). This is a strong issue in this thesis. Moreover, we propose that the urban project should go fur-
ther and not only passively integrate into the urban fabric, but also actively produce more integration,
by the transversal connection concept, this is, connecting to the larger but with more emphasis, to the
lower scales. The concept of transversal connection is intended to counterforce the fragmentation that
can be found in the city of today and is explored and explained below in this chapter and in chapter
4. Again, that “control” of urban form is thought to be not by isolated architectural objects or even
urban projects, but by a network of them, programmed and designed accordingly in a network fash-
ion. Connectivity becomes here a major requirement in the (network of) urban projects program. The
projects presented in this chapter are the first instance to try to solve this requirement and the projects
presented in chapter 7 are structured more in a network fashion, but both groups of projects have in
common the spirit of connection. “Control of urban form” is a top-down mechanical phrase that might
evolve in the near future to something in between “guidelines for emergence of the city form”.

Strategy
Urban projects, either standing alone or networked, are tools for a strategic construction of the city.
Dirk Frieling defines strategy as the combination of a perspective with the projects that fit into it. This
definition is also in the sense of a combination or interaction of the top-down vision or perspective
(the desired evolution of a system) and the inductive projects, fitting one in the other (Steenburgen
et al, 2000). However, urban projects have been generally devised for partial or sectorial strategies, a
reality that has brought fragmentation for instance by infrastructure projects or by private, isolated
developments in the form of gated communities, corporate centers, commercial centers and other
contemporary islands of the “archipelago” of the city of today. Urban projects have been effective to
fulfill the targets set be these partial strategies. It is our thought that networked urban projects can be
a counterpart of fragmentation when, as Frieling says, combined with a perspective (desired evolu-
tion of a system) of connectivity. Connectivity as strategy should as well be holistic and include other
connectivities besides the spatial. For instance, the European Council of Town Planners has recently
defined more kinds of connectivities in the agenda for the “connected city”; they include social, envi-
ronmental and economic connectivities, being perhaps the economic the motivation and the deto-
nator in the past, economic connectivity should play a major role in the perspective of connectivity,
because it contributes with the ingredient of feasibility. This goes tied together with the challenge for
urban projects (Lungo), to establish innovative public and private partnerships. Urban projects are most
apt for this aspect, since they can be concretized just after defined the common vision but before
building them. This is possible by the intervention of designers, engineers and other discipline’s pro-
fessionals in the process of giving form to the idea and assigning rather precise costs to the form.
Having precise costs, a number of innovative strategies, like the surplus value capture for example, can
be established as an alternative way of financing the project and, as we propose, to be applied to other

64 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

specific projects that being smaller in scale are more difficult to finance individually but being numer-
ous and networked, can have a great impact, like large urban projects do.

Assessment
Urban projects, given their concrete features, are subject of assessment and or evaluation even previ-
ously to their building. Lungo (2002) identifies a challenge in this regard: “the challenge is to develop
effective ways to measure and assess various types of impacts and ways to mitigate the negative
effects”. Since this thesis is about connectivity by urban projects, we propose (see also chapters 5 and
9) a method to assess connectivity before and after the intervention by an urban project in the city. The
positive impacts of a higher connectivity are recognized today, since connectivity is directly correlated
to local economic positive cycles, social accessibility and environmental conservation (Gehl, Hillier,
Jacobs, Johnson, Mehaffy, Salingaros, et al.).
Ex-ante assessment is most helpful in a process of taking decisions and developing a common vision
involving as much stakeholders as possible.

Urban projects can be designed as catalysts of connectivity in urban networks. I put the word designed
in italics, because throughout history, most connectivity oriented spaces emerge, rather than be
designed. However, taking advantage of the network theories and the principles of urban structure,
city planning and city architecture can evolve and merge into a science of urban designed connective
projects. Urban projects may turn out to be the third way, the balance between the abstract, top-down
planning and the concrete, emerging bottom-up piece-meal interventions in the city. The combina-
tion of the two ways has given form to the city for centuries and maybe in the 21st, civilization is to
recognize this and look out to discover new ways of making connections in the fragmented city.

4 Where to locate urban projects

Perhaps in the future, infrastructure will have to go back to ‘infra’ to recover valuable land for the city,
where the cost-benefit relationship is positive. ‘Going infra’ might be positive, but may that be done in
projects of high return?

Since the interest for connectivity started with the transversal projects proposed in the 1ABR, in this
thesis, we have chosen the roadspace as the focus of intervention with urban projects, understanding
roadspace not only as the space for vehicles but also as the space for pedestrian mobility, what has
been called the smallest urban or interpersonal scale, nominal radius 3 m (from 1 to 10m); the building
and street scale, nominal radius 10m (from 3 to 30m), connected as well with the scale of the building
complex, nominal radius 30m (10 – 100 m); the scale of the block and the square, nominal radius 100m
(30 – 300 m) and up to the scale of the neighborhood, nominal radius 300m (100 – 1000 m). We have
to bear in mind that these scales are interconnected and furthermore connected to the smaller and
larger scales, but, for effects of delimitation of the research we have chosen four scales, starting at the
smallest in the urban realm, the pedestrian scale. We have to take into account that the urban realm
connects with other smaller spatial realms and that this connection is through the pedestrian scale
space.

Trough the process of the research, other important reasons to focus on urban projects connecting the
roadspace, besides spatial connectivity were found. Take for instance the preferential attachment that
the new nodes in a city have for spaces of mobility because they are more connected. This preferential

Chapter 3: Connective Urban Projects 65

 attachment generates land market phenomena of increasing land values and privileged infrastruc-
ture for hyper-connected spots and decreasing values and segregation in the least-connected and
abandoned places, which have been sometimes also called no-places. However, this economic feature
can be used to provide resources for building connective urban projects by the means of innovative
instruments for financing urban development, such as the capture of surplus values. This is one of
the reasons we have followed to insist in thinking on large urban projects, but networked with smaller
scales up to the pedestrian – interpersonal scale, and with a power-law distribution. Details of the
networked projects and the strategies that are likely to be adopted for their completion appear in
chapters 7 and 8.

Roadspace interfaces
Interface is the place at which independent and often unrelated systems meet and act on or commu-
nicate with each other (Page and Phillips, 2004).
To establish the where’s of the intervention by urban projects, it is also necessary to introduce the
concept of urban interface.
An urban interface is defined here as the space where the user has interaction with the object used; in
this case, the city is the object of use or the structure and the people are subjects that use, or the users.
Two more factors are included in the scene of the contemporary city in these interfaces and within this
research: the automobile vehicles and the information and communication technologies.
The projects presented in this chapter are concerned mostly with the interface between the auto-
mobile system and the pedestrian system. They were structured by the interaction of three layers of
structure in the urban realm: structure, infrastructure and suprastructure.
We have defined already structure as the physical embodiment in which activities take place. In the
specific case of the projects first studied and the layers in which they operate, we call structure to the
layer “at ground level”, the most common layer of the city and where most interaction takes place. By
infrastructure we mean all the structure that is “under” the ground level (by the way, the original mean-

Coexisting vehicular and pedestrian structures

This is the most common of the interactions,
the roadspace where cars and pedestrians
coexist. In the picture, Regent Street in London
is an example of this interaction. It is one of the
vehicular and pedestrian traffic busiest streets
in the city

Illustration 23:
London. Ernesto Philibert Petit

66 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Vehicular structure, pedestrian suprastructure
This is the second most common case in the
city, by using generally pedestrian bridges that
are weak longitudinal connections.

Illustration 24:
Hampstead.

Vehicular structure, pedestrian infrastructure

When more resources are allocated to the
project, a connection for pedestrians may go
“infra” or under the roadspace. This is the suc-
cessful case of the “Koopgoot” in Rotterdam, in
the picture. Success may be partially owed to
transversal connections to the stores at both
sides of the pedestrian underpass.

Illustration 25:
Rotterdam. Ernesto Philibert Petit

Vehicular infrastructure, pedestrian structure

Sometimes this connection takes the form
of buildings as the Malietoren in The Hague
that does not work well in the pedestrian level
because it is segmented from the roadspace.
Anyway it is a good example of recovering
useful urban land from the motorway.

Illustration 26:
Malietoren building in The Hague. Ernesto Phi-
libert Petit.

Chapter 3: Connective Urban Projects 67

 Vehicular suprastructure, pedestrian structure
Sometimes vehicles are put in a structure
over the ground level, leaving pedestrians on
it. There are two variables of this type. First
and most common is when the suprastruc-
ture is not permeable and thus rips the urban
tissue and second and less common, when the
suprastructure is permeable (picture of Sydney,
Australia) and allows the pedestrian and/ or
vehicular connections under it.
Illustration 27:
Sydney, Australia.

Articulation of pedestrian structures

There are a good number of cases in historic
cities, of articulations between two or more
pedestrian spaces, sometimes in the form of
a square and some others, more peculiarly,
in the form of an articulating building as the
Palazzo della Raggione in Bergamo, in the pic-
ture, that articulates the pedestrian space of
two squares by rising the palazzo for lodging
a marketplace.
Illustration 28:
Palazzo della Raggione, Bergamo, Italy. Ernesto
Philibert Petit

ing of infrastructure) and by suprastructure, the structure that is above the ground level. With these
three layers, urban projects with interfaces between pedestrians and vehicles have been built through
history and here, not aiming to establish typologies, we present some examples:

5 Who are the actors that play in urban projects

Research on the participation of actors in the form-giving process of the city and has been done in
recent years (Carmona, Cuenya, Tisma, et al) shedding light to this sometimes dark scenario. Cuenya
(2002) has made a clear identification of the approaches to the study of actors of the process of con-
struction of the built environment. She identifies:
1. The classic urban sociology approach, which considers the city as the result of a process of individual
decision makers.
2. The Marxist urban sociology approach where the city is understood as a social construction, a result
of the dynamics of capital accumulation and collective action, differentiating between the particular
approaches of Castells (urban social movements) and Lojkine (the state as the most important actor).

68 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

3. The recent works in urban sociology and the logic of the new productive system, which explains
the constitution of a network of urban centers with different hierarchies in the global level (Sassen,
Hall, Castells). In Castell’s new hypothesis, the space of flows is not the only one; it combines with the
space of places; a perspective of the global and the local. Regarding this, there is the notion of a global
web, or global system of cities (Fainstein, 1996) that has been steadily growing in a free-scale fashion,
especially in the economic realm, and a number of local networks many times disconnected from the
global (see chapter 2).
In Castell’s new approach to the conceptual relationship of networks and the built environment, there
is a differentiation of urbanization and city. Urbanization is about spatial connections in a continu-
ous or discontinuous environment and reflects the sprawl that has featured the built environment in
recent years; the imprinted spatial model of the out-of-control powerful economic network acting in
a globalized world. City, on the other hand in Castell’s vision, has to do more with the system of social
and cultural relationships, political institutions, etc. where citizens may or may not have some sort of
control; a reference to the local patterns of organization that have made an imprint in the built environ-
ment as well through time.
Other authors (Fainstein, Petsimeris, et al.) also deal with this duality of the global and the local of the
built environment: “A resemblance to the Greek god Janus (Ill. 29), with one face towards the global
world and the other towards the local”, said recently Petros Petsimeris in a visit to my university.

Illustration 29:
Janus

Actors
Cuenya (2002) proposes a classification of actors, activities and motivations behind their actions based
on Pirez, Herzer and Coraggio. Her ‘notes’ have served as a basis for the following proposal to iden-
tify actors, actions and their dominant realms, in an intent to better understand the phenomenon of
urban projects in the city of today. Our actor identification proposal is based on five realms: political,
economic, social, environmental, and spatial. These realms, being interconnected and present in most
of the processes of developing urban projects, derive into one at a time, “dominant” personality of the
actor, associated to a specific facet of the realm. The diversity of secondary associations produces a
very high number of different “profiles” for the actors in a given process, so we propose the identifica-
tion of the motives behind and the interests of the actors in the urban projects process to be done on
site, case-specific, however identifying the connections of every actor.
The realms identified are political, economic, social, environmental and spatial. We have already writ-
ten on the interdependence of the first four realms, which are patterns of organization, and the fifth,
which represents structures. We have to think of a model that includes all these realms and to think of
their interconnections since the actions of the actors in these realms are not independent actions and
affect each other and the process as a whole.

Chapter 3: Connective Urban Projects 69

 The dominant personalities of actors can be associated to a given process in a realm, for instance, an
actor in the economic realm may have a dominant personality associated to capital, labor or commodi-
ties and it is from this dominant personality from where it should be studied and related with the rest
of the actors in the urban projection process. The associations of the dominant personalities in our
proposal are:
Political realm: power exertion, political capital, image, technical bureaucracies.
In the economic realm: capital, labor, production, consumption.
In the social realm: citizen groups, social organizations, professional associations, marginalized and
other social groups.
In the environmental realm: natural resources metabolism (water, energy, materials and wastes).
In the spatial realm: spatial form-giving professionals and technicians, real estate development, con-
struction enterprising.
Any given actor in the process of making urban projects will have a set of motivations and interests,
mainly associated to its dominant personality but also networked to other facets that, not being domi-
nant, can bias the actions of the actor in a given way. As an example, a politician (actor) involved in
the process from the political realm, may have a dominant personality associated to power exertion
because of the nature of his work in a given time, but he may also have motives and interest from other
non-dominant associations as for instance the production of a given commodity, the professional
association that he belongs to and the management of water, an issue in which he has been genuinely
most interested since years. The set of dominant personality and other associations, define what can
be called a profile of the actors.
The consequent diversity of profiles, so natural in the complexity of human life, poses a critique to any
analytical intent for determination of the personalities of the actors in a process.
Defining and even more, classifying actors gets even more complicated when changing the scales of
the urban projects. The set of actors that usually act in the process of a large urban project can be quite
different to the set of actors that act in a small urban project.

There are two trends regarding the involvement of actors in a spatial form-giving process in the city.
The first and dominant paradigm today is the one belonging to the “new urban regime” that usually
involves only the political and economic realms, with strong associations to power exertion, political
profit, image, and capital surplus, with weak associations to social welfare, professional knowledge
and environmental concerns. I will here call this trend “closed” because it is mainly exclusive and works
most of the times in a sort of “black box” that citizens usually are not able to look into. The closed acting
process is the main responsible of the fragmented condition of the city.
On the other hand, there are some specific methods that have been under development in recent
years, directed to bring all the actors to a table where to discuss the city form-giving process as well
as urban projects. Social participation in strategic planning is one of the first examples in recent years.
Other methods include for example, IT tools (Tisma) and “enquiries by design” (New Urbanism). The
common essence of these methods is participation and thus we will call this trend “open”.
Open processes and methods for the participation of actors are needed today to counterforce frag-
mentation in the city. The closed system of decisions is unsustainable and has got to change. Open
processes for urban projects are fundamental for a connected city.

70 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

6 Transversal projects and dynamic scales
“If you want to explore design as a method of research, you have to start with a hypothesis, as any seri-
ous research must. If you want to find the role of design in strategic planning, it is not a bad idea to go
against the current of common opinions and common practice”.
Dirk Frieling.

6.1 Transversal urban projects

A preliminary concept of transversal connection came out in the form of transversal urban projects in
the research process after analyzing the fragmentation phenomenon by large auto-mobility structures
in the city. This preliminary analysis was made for the project called Mexico Avenue 2030, developed
for the First International Architecture Biennial of Rotterdam in 2003.
After making a problem-statement about fragmentation, the research team in the Mexico Avenue
project got onto the proposal of solution for that fragmentation in the form of urban projects that
were intended to connect transversally the urban tissue that had been cut longitudinally by the mobil-
ity structure. The general concept was to develop inclusive, participative designs where the aesthet-
ics of mobility (the general subject of the Biennial) represented the “longitudinal actor” along the
urban motor road. The objective was to develop concrete design solutions on this route, which were
hypothetically coherent with the contextual city fabric in spatial, economic and ecological terms. This
objective was to be achieved by “transversal” urban projects in strategic locations within the city. The
team declared that those transversal projects were concerned with the notion of sustainability. Thus,
the aims of the projects were the improvement of the urban tissue, and the recovery of the flows that
were interrupted by the modern model of infrastructure. In other words, the transversal urban projects
were intended to become means for making the longitudinal ones feasible (Philibert, 2003. p 128).
The concept of transversal urban projects surged in the research as a design program, as a sort of equal-
izer for the dominance we found of longitudinal projects in the city, pretty much as in Frieling’s phrase
against the common practice of the longitudinal. We have to say that the idea was then mostly intuitive
and lacked of a body of theoretical fundaments. Theoretical research to support the original idea was
made after the biennial and we will later get back to fundaments for this “primitive”, intuitive idea in
chapters 4 and 5, where we address the subject of connection and networks, respectively. Anyway,
we have maintained the term transversal for denomination of the urban projects we proposed in the
biennial and for the more recent ones developed for the empirical part of this thesis, after researching
the corresponding theoretical fundaments. For the Mexico Avenue project we initially adopted what
we believe to be an inclusive stance, as illustrated below:

Illustration 30:
Diagram of the integrated approach. Ernesto
Philibert Petit

Chapter 3: Connective Urban Projects 71

 The diagram of the “integrated approach” for the projects for the biennial included three axes. The
first one, the originator is that which we called longitudinal and had to do with mobility infrastructure
design, urban projects along the road. This axis represented the original impression we had from the
aesthetics of mobility; however we later understood that designing from the road has much more to do
with the subject of visual transversal connections we address below in this chapter. The second one
was the vertical axis of spatial planning and what we called then dynamic scales. In many senses, this
vertical axis was related with the view form above the road; the view that we concluded in the biennial
to be overwhelmingly dominated by top-down, mechanistic approaches. The notion of dynamic scales
related to the vertical axis we had at the time of the biennial, was later understood in the research proc-
ess with help of theoretical findings of Nikos Salingaros and other theoreticians.
Finally in the biennial, we proposed the third axis, the transversal one, as urban projects. In fact the
aim of these transversal urban projects was the origin of the main hypothesis in this work: a network of
urban projects can connect the fragmented city.
On December 2002, before the design stage, while working on the program for the projects to be
submitted to the Biennial, we wrote:
“Strategies for design are organised according to the actors identified and resemble the general struc-
ture for research. We propose that through them, we can integrate the three different visions identi-
fied: from the road, towards the road and from above the road.
The general concept is to deliver inclusive, participative design in which aesthetics of mobility plays a
role of a longitudinal actor, along the urban motor road in the selected route; this actor is represented
by the team that has been in charge of the Visio-ware research, now enriched also by the human-ware
and the hard and soft info. The longitudinal design team now has the vision to make concrete propos-
als along the road, but still, at the large scale, those proposals need to be well ‘tied’ to the city fabric,
spatially, economically and ecologically speaking. The strategy to ‘tie’ the longitudinal proposals is
through developing transversal urban projects in strategic locations of the city, which are concerned
with the recovery of urban tissue, recovering as well the flows interrupted by the modern model of
infrastructure and thus concerned also with its sustainability. A third strategic vector completes the
network, the vertical approach, that of planning from above. In this integrated vision, planning does

Illustration 31:
Master plan. Ernesto Philibert Petit

72 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

not operate independent of the other actors, as it happens time and again in the city. Our vertical
vector is an integrated planning vision (from above the road) that works in the form of a master plan,
developed accordingly with the theoretical framework and that is linked actively with the other two
actors of spatial design in this case in which spatial planning transforms into a non-passive actor of
spatial design”.

The master plan (Ill. 31) was developed in selected parts of the route in Mexico City and it was intended
to be an approach that gave way to architectural interventions, both transversal and longitudinal
through it. Transversal urban projects were intended to become means for making the longitudinal
feasible, and to integrate along with the vertical axis of spatial planning-design, a whole to convert the
visualized possible future into a probable and desirable one.

Transversal urban projects for Mexico Avenue

On early 2003 we wrote: “Looking at the possibility of regenerating the urban tissues that the infra-
structures of mobility have denied, a number of urban projects across Mexico Avenue is proposed.
These projects have also the intention of making the longitudinal (along the road) design proposals
feasible, by congregating social, economic and political actors within them. As an emerging part of
the urban program, the information technologies are considered as a tool to possibly recover territory
yielded to the infrastructures of mobility. The projects should follow general ideas of a network-ori-
ented development and they operate as well as the field for the longitudinal proposals”.

Next, we present a selection of the transversal projects developed for Mexico Avenue 2030, with a brief
description of the program and discussion.

Chapultepec Connection
The automobility infrastructure cuts one of the largest urban parks in the world, Chapultepec, into
sections. This first project raises the vehicular structure in pilotis, providing permeability for the pedes-
trians enjoying the park. From the automobile point of view, raising the roadway allows the drivers to
have five different green sceneries, depending on the route selected. All five bodies of the roadway
converge in a point where the route is connected to the tunnel below Galería Chapultepec.

Illustration 32:
Chapultepec Connection. Ernesto Philibert
Petit

Chapter 3: Connective Urban Projects 73

 Galería Chapultepec
The urban project for Chapultepec besides redesigning the mobility infrastructure of the Periférico
over the park is the development of a commercial area over a new tunnel that will contain the urban
road from Reforma to Palmas avenues. The territory recovered from the current road (ca. 5 hectares),
Galería Chapultepec, would be the site of this urban development of high-rise/mixed-use (commercial
and housing) buildings with the surface used by the former road as a new territory to develop commer-
cially in favor of the City with low-rise commercial complex. The project was intended to recovering,
recycling and integrating as well, the abandoned commercial center Plaza Lomas. The project would
be effectively linked with the tourist light train, taking advantage of the existing and currently out of
use railway line to the West.

Illustration 33:
Galería Chapultepec. Ernesto Philibert Petit

Multimedia Tunnel
Right under Galería Chapultepec, the urban motorway goes into an 800 m long tunnel that provides
as well parking and connection to the buildings in the surface. The funding of this project has been
calculated to be sustained by the revenues of multimedia advertisement displayed inside the tunnel,
with full payment in 25 years. This means an alternative way of financing urban development along
with the opportunities that would appear by the generation of new urban land and by the capture of
surplus values in the development.

Illustration 34:
Multimedia tunnel. Render by Antonio García,
Alexis Ramírez and Alejandro Guerrero

74 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

High (rise) way
After the multimedia tunnel below Galería Chapultepec, the motorway steps up into a special narrow
building, constructed over pilotis that allows having a connected space for pedestrians at the ground
level; classifying the traffic according to destinations and providing a lateral surface of the building
that may be used for advertisement or other forms of communication with the users of the buildings at
both sides of the way. The elevation of the road also provides the area needed to place a line of a light
train connecting with El Toreo southern station in one direction and with other branches in the other.

Illustration 35:
High (rise) way.

El Toreo f36
A green junction was proposed in this project, linking visually the existing Deportivo Mundet, Centro
Deportivo Olímpico Mexicano, military facilities, the horse race facilities and the Sanctorum and San
Joaquín cemeteries, all of them green areas, as a large green urban park. The Periférico would run over
the park, except by the segment that would run underground from the limit of the DF and the Estado
de México until just after the El Toreo junction. This underground circulation would recover a large
territory for development the project for El Toreo, integrating commercial facilities, cinemas and office
buildings with a large bullfight arena with a large urban centre for business, conventions, shows and
exhibitions. A five star hotel development was also included. The area for pedestrians recovered over
the Periférico would connect by foot, two large public transport terminals, one linking to the DF trans-
port system and the other with the transport system of the Estado de México’s metropolitan area.

Illustration 36:
El Toreo. Render by Hatumi Hirano, Alexis Ramí-
rez and Alejandro Guerrero

Chapter 3: Connective Urban Projects 75

 La Recta
Going on from El Toreo to the north, the road is a straight line through four and a half kilometers. Cur-
rently it presents a problem of fragmentation that is proposed to be solved by bridge-buildings across
the motorway and a problem of chaotic communication because of advertisement that is proposed to
be ordered by two “communication strips” at both sides of the roadway. These communication strips
interact with drivers and pedestrians. The directions of the three (out of seven) central lanes are inter-
changeable depending on the traffic demand at a given time.

Illustration 37:
La Recta. Render by Alexis Ramírez and Alejan-
dro Guerrero

Museo Barragán
At the point where la Recta ends at the curve that gives way to the Torres park, one of the bridge-build-
ings has been proposed to be the Luis Barragán museum. The main view of this transversal building is
the Satélite towers, a famous landmark by Luis Barragán and Mathias Goeritz.

Illustration 37:
La Recta. Render by Alexis Ramírez and Alejan-
dro Guerrero

76 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Las Torres
This project will develop the idea of a green park under the road at the Satélite Torres. The project will
link the existing Naucalli Park to the West, with a new green area to the East of the Periférico. Feasability
would be explored upon the development of mixed-use medium-rise buildings in the eastern borders
of the new park. The project should include the restoration and recovery of the space for the Torres
de Satélite and a proposal for a landmark fountain at the northern end of the straight segment of the
Periférico.

Illustration 39:
Museo Barragán. Ernesto Philibert Petit

Arcos
This last urban project for the Biennial is located at the end of the route studied, in Querétaro at the
junction of Boulevard Bernardo Quintana and the Calzada de los Arcos, where the old aqueduct of the
city stands proudly. Bernardo Quintana segments the newly developed urban tissues of Querétaro and
this project is to explore possibilities of integrating them at the crossing mentioned. New land uses are
to be proposed from the recovery of the territory above. The project would include new links of the
transversal street grid.

Figure 40:
Boulevard Bernardo Quintana and Los Arcos.
Render by Antonio Juárez

Chapter 3: Connective Urban Projects 77

 7 Connected scales and transversal connection
After the Biennial, I met Nikos Salingaros (for the first time) in December 2003 in San Antonio. I had read
some of his papers and was looking for advice on how to measure connectivity in projects as the ones
presented in the former section. He was very kind to give me time to listen to the ideas we had been
developing until then in the research. To present these ideas, I drew a small sketch of an urban project
over an (auto) mobility route and expressed the intention to propose spatial connections for the urban
tissue with such kind of interventions. His comment was polite as well as intriguing: “This is fine, but…
why don’t you start by smaller projects?” This question provoked a second round in the research proc-
ess, which started soon with deeper study of prof. Salingaros’ work about connections (see chapter 4)
and networks (see chapter 5). Over time, I changed the idea of transversal projects for transversal con-
nections and dynamic scales for connected, holarchic scales in the research.

7.1 The concept of connected scales

Urban projects are generally considered in the ‘large’ and ‘extra-large’ scales, that are partly, a phe-
nomenon of the globalized economy network. Investigating connectivity we have learned that urban
projects of the smallest scale (repeated consistently) may have major effects in connecting different
urban constituent ‘layers’ and that this effect is not exclusive for the corresponding scale of interven-
tion, the effect may be of a considerable dimension in other scales (Salingaros). We propose then an
approach to urban projects with a flexible and inclusive vision of dynamic scales.
One of the fundamental features of complex systemstt is its holarchic order. New findings in the field
of complex systems have shown the connectedness of scales within a system, its holarchic structure.
Holarchic is understood in this thesis as the fitting of a system within a system within a system, as
in the fractal structures of nature, presenting self-similarity. These fittings between scales are con-
nected between themselves in live systems and they are not present in artificial structures that have
not evolved over time.
The scientific work of Nikos Salingaros has linked the science of complex systems with a theory of
the city (the urban web), which consists mainly of three principles, the third regards the connection
between scales:

“When allowed to do so, the urban web self-organizes by creating an ordered hierarchy of connections
on several different levels of scale [holarchic structure]. It becomes multiply connected but not cha-
otic. The organization process follow a strict order: starting from the smallest scales (footpaths), and
progressing up to the higher scales (roads of increasing capacity). If any connective level is missing, the
web is pathological. A hierarchy can rarely be established all at once” (Salingaros 1998).
We have changed the term hierarchy for holarchy since the latter has a more inclusive sense of top-
down and bottom-up interconnection and the former still evokes a top-down order between scales.
A complementing concept in Salingaros’ theory:
“Complex large-scale wholes are assembled from tightly interacting subunits on many different levels
of scale, in a hierarchy going down to the natural structure of materials. A variety of elements and func-
tions on the small scale is necessary for large-scale coherence (Salingaros, 1998). Salingaros proposes
that the scales increase in a ratio very close to the e number, 2.71 which is a coincident idea with the
“order of size” proposed by de Jong (2002) which increases or decreases in a ratio of 1:3, which is illus-
trated in the Illustration next:

78 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Illustration 41:
Order of size. Taeke de Jong

De Jong has proposed and named a range of scales and a “nominal radius” for each one with a range
to the next smaller and larger scales. This is a very useful tool to study the connection between scales
and is taken in this thesis as a guideline for their description and classification.

7.2 The concept of transversal connection

We consider a transversal connection in a system that which connects to a smaller scale and a longitu-
dinal connection is considered that which connects to a larger scale. Transversal connections can be
connections of mobility (transversal accessibility) and of information (transversal permeability).
Connections have always been necessary for the development of civilization, however, in at least the
last three centuries and following the mechanistic scientific paradigm and the partition of reality, the
concept of connection has become mostly longitudinal, with the aim to connect from A to B regardless
of what happens along the way, in its transections. This longitudinality feature has been exacerbated
in the years of the first modernity with the sectorial view of engineering spearheading the construc-
tion of connections – infrastructure – in the cities from A to B but regardless of what happens with the
transversal connections that had existed or might have existed in the urban tissue.
A path in the small, interpersonal or pedestrian scale is longitudinal when it connects buildings and
forms modules in the block scale but becomes transversal when it connects interpersonal nodes. A
road or roadspace in the neighborhood is longitudinal when it connects neighborhoods to form towns
or sectors of a city (the larger scale) and is transversal when connecting blocks or modules of buildings
(the smaller scale).
This concept of transversal connection is in a way found in the structure of complex systems in nature,
since their scales are interconnected. Illustration 42:

Illustration 42:
Ponte Vecchio.

Chapter 3: Connective Urban Projects 79

 To illustrate the idea of transversal connection, I will use one of my favorite examples of a transversal
connectivity project in history, the Ponte Vecchio (above). In the early stage of the city of Florence, the
River Arno represented a border and on time it became necessary to establish a connection (a bridge)
between the two sides of the river to connect the city. This is a longitudinal connection if we see it as
a connection for the larger scale and the larger nodes A and B were the two parts of the city. However,
as we have seen, there is a range of interconnected scales in the urban space in which the pedestrian
or interpersonal scale (3 – 10 m) is fundamental. What is most interesting in the Ponte Vecchio is that
besides providing the urban space with a longitudinal connection, along the span of the bridge (as it
almost always happens with bridges), there is an allowed generation of nodes or centers of activity at
both of its edges which on time, generate transversal connections, across the roadspace, to the smaller
scale. In a way, the Ponte Vecchio connects in the longitudinal as well as in the transversal direction,
providing a lively urban space in between the shops (below). Illustration 43

Illustration 43:
Ponte Vecchio.

8 Transversal-connectivity urban projects

This section is intended to illustrate the idea of some transversal-connectivity urban projects, from
Ponte Vecchio to Orange County. Examples are useful to help establishing the point of transversal con-
nections, so desperately absent in the city of today. However, some of the projects showed here like
the Millennium City by Siembab, Page and Phillips are hope-giving reactions to fragmentation. The
section is not intended to establish typologies, or to explain in depth the phenomenon of pedestrian
scale connections in the city (V. Salingaros, 2005); it is directed only to present examples of what is and
what is not a transversally connected urban space. (Ill 43)

As we said in the last section, the Ponte Vec-

chio in Florence is one of the best examples in
history on transversal connections. The bridge
can be a longitudinal connector in the scale of
the two neighborhoods it connects, but has
moreover developed transversal nodes that
are connected across the bridge. These con-
nections are at the smallest urban scale, the
Illustration 44: pedestrian scale. This is a transversal-connec-
Ponte Vecchio, Florence tivity urban project.

80 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan is an
example of a successful transversal connectiv-
ity urban project. It connects longitudinally
three major squares in the city through a cov-
ered commercial center that provides the space
with a high number of transversal connectors,
generating a lively urban space.

Illustration 45:
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, Milan. Ernesto Phi-
libert Petit

Sometimes a simple modification in the vehic-

ular structure can be a successful transversal
connectivity urban project. The street in the
northern edge of Trafalgar Square in London
was for a number of years a fragmentation
factor. The proposal of connecting both sides
of the street through an extension of the
square up to the National Gallery took several
years to progress but when finally constructed
Illustration 46:
Trafalgar Square, London. Ernesto Philibert it became a successful case of transversal con-
Petit nectivity.

This example in Tsukuba, Japan is a geometri-

cally defined square in the center of the city.
It lacks of the vitality a central square has in
other cities by not having a grading of pedes-
trian scale connectors. This is not a connective
project.

Illustration 47:
Tsukuba, Japan. Gehl and Gemzoe (2002: 247)

Chapter 3: Connective Urban Projects 81

 Quincy Market in Boston, a successful pedes-
trian space is under replication all through the
extra-large urban project of the Big Dig, which
is a major intervention to put the vehicular
structure again in the ‘infra’ level, recovering
for the city large portions of urban land.

Illustration 48:
Quincy Market, Boston. Ernesto Philibert Petit

The Big Dig is literally a big excavation under-

neath the area that used to be a ‘turnpike’, a
major motorway that fragmented Boston as it
is the case in many urban territories all through
the world. The spaces recovered are assigned
Illustration 49: to public open spaces that connect transver-
The Big Dig, Boston. Central sally again the urban tissue.
Artery Tunnel. Boston 2000:
A Plan for the Central Artery
Thomas M. Menino, Mayor,
City of Boston, Mark Maloney,
Director, Boston Redevelop-
ment Authority

Illustration 50:
Big Dig, Boston.
Master plan of a
North End Parcel.
Copley Wolff Design
Group

A busy pedestrian street shows urban liveliness

in Curitiba, Brazil, a city that has been successful
by building connections in several scales, start-
ing with the organization of the city around a
robust public transport system.

Illustration 51:
Curitiba, Brazil. Gehl and
Gemzoe (2002), p. 71

82 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 This longitudinal connector in Gibelina, Sicily
is only a longitudinal connector, traversing a
large part of the medieval city, however lack-
ing of transversal nodes to generate transver-
sal connectivity.

Illustration 52:
Via Condotti, Rome. Ernesto Philibert Petit

The longitudinal intervention in the urban

tissue of medieval Rome that the Via Condotti
meant was skillfully completed transversally
by the opening of a high number of transver-
sal nodes at both sides of the street, here seen
from the Spanish Steps.

Illustration 53:
Via Condotti, Rome. Ernesto
Philibert Petit

The wide pedestrian bridge between the

Maremagnum and the Ramblas in Barcelona
has only an insinuation of the longitudinal
connection by the axial structures built there.
However, there are no transversal connecting
nodes besides a few benches or kiosks. This is
Illustration 54:
not a transversal connectivity project.
Maremagnum bridge, Bar-
celona. Ernesto Philibert
Petit

Illustration 55. Recent proposals by Siembab Page and Phillips

Phased recov- (2001) for the use Information and Communica-
ery strategy
tions Technologies for the regeneration of the
for convert-
ing single use urban tissue are also transversal-connectivity
transporta- urban projects. In the Illustration left, the longi-
tion corridors tudinal roadspace is sequentially connected to
to active uses.
the urban tissue progressively by substituting
Siembab,
Walter, Scott road capacity for IT connections and replacing
Page and Brian infrastructure with spaces for ‘active uses’.
Phillips (2003)

Chapter 3: Connective Urban Projects 83

 9 Conclusions
Urban projects are concrete interventions in the urban space. They can belong to a given scale, but
affect the others, since scales are interconnected in the complex system of the city.
Urban projects may be an instrument to balance top-down planning with bottom-up emergence in
the city’s processes.
Currently, urban projects are seen as real estate and/ or infrastructure developments but may be
become wider in scope and considered with a multi-scalar reach; they can improve governance by
involving top-down and bottom-up processes into a concrete common vision developed by design.
Urban projects can help harmonizing urban form from economic, social and environmental points of
view, besides of the spatial; they are a tool for strategic construction of the city, especially when con-
ceived networked.
Urban projects are subject of concrete assessment and are a most useful for taking decisions (by con-
sensus).

Urban projects can be designed as roadspace interfaces to improve connectivity. Actors playing a role
in the processes of urban projects can belong either to a “closed” model or to an “open” one, depend-
ing on the degree of participation of the community in such processes. The more participation in a
project, the more pertinence the project will have in the community.

In this research, the concept of transversal urban project evolved to transversal connection and the
concept of dynamic scales evolved to the concept of connected scales or holarchy.
A transversal connection is that which connects a system to a smaller scale. In the city, transversal
connections can be either of mobility (transversal accessibility) or of information (transversal perme-
ability). The relationship of these two transversal connection variables is further studied in chapters 5
and 9.

Endnotes
1. During the 1980s the World Bank took up the concept of governance to describe the way power is
exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources. At the heart of discus-
sions about governance are terms such as responsibility, information, transparency, the rule of law.
Governance does not refer to political power in the strict sense. It is not the art of administration
at a given level of power, but the art of coordinating administration between different territorial
levels.
www.solagral.org/publications/pedago/mondialisation_1999/version_gb/glossary.htm
2. V. Chapter 5. Networks

84 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

4 Connection as a strategy

Strategy

1 Connection
“We are looking for the structural basis for life, and how beings connect to that life, and to the uni-
verse”. Nikos Salingaros.

In chapter 2 we discuss the issue of fragmentation in the city’s spatial, social, economic and envi-
ronmental realms at the beginning of the 21st century. We establish fragmentation as a problem of
sustainability in years to come. In chapter 3, we propose that urban projects can be instruments for
connection, as an inductive approach to city form-giving and due to their efficiency in the “new urban
regime” in most cities... but, what do we mean by connection as a strategy in terms of this thesis?
The central hypothetical assumption of this thesis is that networks of urban projects can connect
the fragmented city.
When fragmentation is the first preliminary conclusion of observation and interpretation, it is time
to seriously consider connection as a strategy for city planning and design. Fragmentation of city
structures has contributed to fragmentation in patterns of organization of our society. Thus, economic
polarization, social segregation and environmental disruption are causes but at the same time effects,
since there is a cyclic process between structures and patterns. Connecting the spatially fragmented
entities can help reduce fragmentation in social organisation patterns. New scientific knowledge is
here to orient connection processes in the form of the emerging science of networks, where the spatial
notion of accessibility is translated into the notion of connectedness, the state of connection (as an
individual or household) to a given network, be it spatial, social, economic, environmental, and infor-
mational or a fusion of them.

The work of professor Nikos Salingaros regarding urban structures is in the cutting-edge about con-
nections and networks in the built environment and the presence of his work is very strong in this
thesis in the overall scope.
It can be said that Salingaros’ work is mostly about studying connections. His work is dedicated to
establish scientifically the principles that rule the complex relationships between humans and their
built environment, or in the conceptual model adopted in this thesis, the complex relationship between
patterns and structure.
Some principles, the basis for the empirical study, will be discussed theoretically in this chapter about
connections and in the next one, about networks. However, I don’t pretend to make a descriptive syn-
thesis of Nikos Salingaros’ work; I would rather underline and discuss about specific principles in which
this thesis is based, and make a direct link of such principles with our empirical research.

2 Connection as a strategy.
“A strategy is the structured and effective manner in which an established aim or target image could
be achieved” H. Mintzberg

Chapter 4: Connectivity as a strategy 85

 The phrase “connection as a strategy” implies that connection is not an end in itself or a final aim or
target as Mintzberg has defined strategy. In this thesis, connection as a strategy means that connection
is a structured effective manner in which the city form-giving actors might achieve sustainability. Sus-
tainability is here the final aim, the target image in terms of spatial planning. After studying, adapting,
modifying and restructuring definitions of sustainability, we have adopted a definition from R.S Levine
et al. that have defined it as a local, informed, participative, balance-seeking process operating within a
sustainable area budget, exporting no imbalances beyond its territory or into the future, thus expanding the
spaces of possibility for its citizens and their descendants (Levine et al, 2000).

Sustainability and connection.

Analysis of Levine et al. definition of sustainability and points of relation with connection as a strategy,
that speaks of many different roles for various stakeholders within the sustainability process:
Local means city-region. Furthermore, “sustainable area budget” is the total land area that the city-
region has to work with in order to obtain its resources and to balance out its wastes. It is related to
the ecological footprint, but while the ecological footprint answers the question “how much land area
is our city appropriating?”, sustainable Area Budget says “this is the amount of land we need to work
with. Now, what can we figure to do with it?” The former is an analytical question, likely to be asked by
a scientist. The latter is a synthetic question, likely to be asked by a designer.
The sustainable area budget implies a deep environmental connection between the structures of the
city, the patterns of consumption of environmental resources and the city’s region. It is a focused spa-
tial view for the (according to the authors) the most adequate unit to study sustainable processes, the
city. Furthermore, local can be interpreted as for economic processes. As we have seen in chapter 2,
global economic processes have undermined the local ones in an unsustainable scheme. Local eco-
nomic connections are needed to make the development of the city sustainable.
Informed, this is the realm of science, but it is also the realm of design. The role of science in the complex
systems that city-regions are, will be to build systemic models of emerging city designs. A system mod-
eling process would permit different stakeholders to propose their ideas and requirements. Account-
able information is a need for participation and participation is a key to social sustainability. Computer
technology allows carrying forward a high number of alternatives for sustainability (de Jong). Levine
proposes two types of systems and system effects that must be studied together: the quantitative,
energy and material flows and the architectural and urbanistic forms within which the flows occur,
much alike our proposal in chapter two of the interaction between patterns and structures.
Participatory. In many ways this is the real key, if not the underlying problem. “The problem with Sus-
tainability is that no one owns the problem”. Many sources of literature on Sustainability insist on par-
ticipation and stakeholder processes as an essential part of a sustainability program. Science is seen as
an objective process where opinions don’t count. But in achieving sustainable cities, science is seen as
a tool and not as an end in itself. Sustainability is about how a local population, the dwellers of a city-
region choose to live within the limits of nature and their own creativity. Designers will be of enormous
help in assisting the citizen stakeholders to make their choices by providing them with visions of a pos-
sible future. Social participation is a tool for social integration, or social connection.
Balance seeking process. This is the process of nature – of organisms and natural ecosystems. “The
system that our global economy has devolved into is an artificial system whose essential shortcoming
is that it has built into it no feedback for spatial, environmental and social consequences or indeed
for its long-term survival” (Levine et al., 2000). A balance-seeking process in the city is one with con-
nections between urban space and local economic processes, between urban space and local social
processes, as social mix and social participation, both of them hardly seen out of an urban setting. Con-
nections are needed as well between the urban structures or spaces and the environmental processes.

86 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Moreover, connections are needed between every one of the social, economic, environmental and
spatial processes to achieve a nature-like process, as organisms and natural ecosystems. The condition
for the sustainability of our civilization process is balance or equilibrium, far from the polarized and
unbalanced processes of today.
“…exporting no imbalances beyond its territory or its future”. A city region operating as an informed, par-
ticipatory, balance-seeking system (within its determined budget), by this definition will be operating
sustainably. It will not be appropriating the space of any other city regions. However, to achieve bal-
ance between itself and other city regions, it should be part of a network, a well-connected one. This
last sentence applies well in terms of time. To regain sustainability, our processes in the planet should
not export any imbalance (we are mostly speaking about deficits) into the future, considering as well,
the expected growth of the population of the planet.
The common denominator for economic, social and environmental connections in the city is urban
space. It is in this realm where intervention is needed to make and re-make connections. Urban space,
the set of urban structures, is a key for the necessary process towards sustainability. Its recurrent frag-
mentation in at least the last century has produced “holes” or discontinuities in the spatial network for
many years and in a large part of the urban territory of the planet. However, as we will see next, ever
since urbanism became a discipline, there have been “connective” trends opposed to the dominating
fragmentation and in recent years; growing movements in urbanism have made a statement against
fragmentation and in favor of connection in the urban space and of urban processes.

3 Connecting theories and practices in urbanism.

Connection and networks in urbanism.

Even though having a zonal spatial paradigm for many years, some concepts of urbanism have turned
out to see connection as a strategy. The concept of connection suggests the link of at least two nodes.
Connection is the originating principle of networks, which are formed by nodes, connections (links)
and present a hierarchy (Salingaros, 1998) and thus, the notions of connection and of networks are
closely linked. The concepts of connection and networks are closely interrelated.
In this section, we take a look at connection, from the pragmatic conception of the technological net-
works, to an integrated vision of the connected city (ECTP, 2003).
Connection can be seen as a pragmatic construction of the city, which we will call “longitudinal” con-
nections or as a reaction to fragmentation, looking forward to hold the urban tissue together, the
“transversal” connection of the urban territory. Longitudinal connections are mostly only concerned
with the flow along the connection, with little or no regard to the effects on the urban tissue, they are
pragmatic and usually sectorial, they operate in the relationship between topology and kinetics of a
network and are more alike to be global. Transversal connections are rather involved with repairing the
separation caused by the longitudinal connections; they are concerned with the flows across the lon-
gitudinal connections. Transversal connections are contextual and usually integration-oriented; they
operate in the relationship between topology and adaptiveness1 and are more alike to be local.
In this thesis, the vision is integrative, which means both notions of connection are included.
Technological networks have been associated to a paradigm of “mechanical function” of the city. It is
Dupuy (1991) who pioneers the study of the city through the lens of the urban network and its inher-
ent connections, for what he proposes three dimensions or approaches: topology (the arrangement
of nodes and links in a network), kinetics (the inclusion of time and movement in the network) and
adaptiveness (the systemic dimension of the network).

Chapter 4: Connectivity as a strategy 87

 Brief review of connective theories and practices in urbanism, from
Haussmann to Salingaros.
(Based largely on Dupuy, 19912 and complemented by Hall, 1996 and Kostof, 1991)

Haussmann
Haussmann had an ambiguous position regarding connections. The topological limits of the
haussmannian network appeared soon, since he conceived a strictly hierarchized network. Strong
zonal concepts are still embedded in Haussmann’s conception of the city: interior/exterior, center/
periphery. For Dupuy, Haussmann’s ideas had a strong emphasis on topology while having little
or no emphasis on kinetics and adaptiveness (Dupuy, 1991). Haussmann’s proposed connections
are only longitudinal; he conceived a closed circulatory system. (Ill. 56)

Illustration 56:
Paris street; rainy day by Gustave Caille-
botte illustrates the late 19th century Paris
and its new connections. The Art Institute
of Chicago.

Paxton
While Haussmann was making interventions in Paris, Paxton “acts with the same spirit” in London,
proposing longitudinal connections: a railroad ring, linking the railway stations of the city. This
idea gave birth to London’s “underground”. Paxton’s plans were the equivalent in London to
Haussmann’s avenue network in Paris. Paxton’s proposed connections are longitudinal and with
more emphasis in topology and kinetics and less in adaptiveness. Paxton had already into account
the kinetic dimension, his new network had to lower the time spent to go to one node to another
to 15 minutes (Dupuy, 1991).

Cerdà
Cerdá may very well be the pioneer of network urbanism. His urban concept is based on connec-
tions, on mobility and in networks.
“Buildings and vitality are two related and indissoluble ideas and one cannot exist without the
other” (Cerdà, 1867). He proposed an urban model without center; each house is the center of
vitality (a node). His theory started by reconstructing the history of human habitat, seeing the
city as a necessary combination of refuge and circulation, stasis and mobility. This relationship is
found in all the scales3 , the city is a corner of habitability in the great system of universal mobil-

88 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 ity-ways. This concept of mobility-ways is an absolute imperative: the possibility, always and in
everyplace of mobility, of rapid circulation, direct, with no limit. Cerdà designed an open network
that allows that all the inhabitants in the city may reach each other by multiplying the connection
possibilities. His vision is considered with a great emphasis on topology and kinetics, though not
leaving apart the adaptability of the network, which is evident by the way, Cerdà treats the cross-
ings as nodes that serve for the topological distribution of movement. Cerdà’s project stayed far
away from the blind canalization of the circulations that later will be adopted by the “progressive
urbanism” (Dupuy, 1991) and maybe for this reason, his work has been hidden for more than a
century, re-emerging in the present day as a model of a balanced mixture of longitudinal and
transversal connections. (Ill. 57)

Illustration 57:
Ildefonso Cerda’s 1859 plan for Barcelona.
Museu d’Historia de la Ciutat de Barce-
lona.

Soria y Mata
Madrid still has reminiscences of the linear city, Arturo Soria y Mata’s 1886 proposal, the Ciudad
Lineal. Soria y Mata’s design principle was that of maximum connection. In his own words, “in
every agglomeration…the fundamental problem is that of the communication between the
households”. His project pretends to conduct all the communications to an axis where their con-
struction could be eased. More obvious than in other examples in this review, the Ciudad Lineal
(Ill. 58) is oriented to longitudinal connection, however, concern is shown to keep the urban tissue
together in the transversal direction. Soria y Mata’s work had an integrated emphasis on topol-
ogy, kinetics and adaptiveness. He said that the form of a city should be the form derived from
the locomotion needs: the city form would be perfect when the time taken to move between the
households (nodes) would be minimum (Dupuy, 1991).

Illustration 58:
Soria y Mata’s 1892 Ciudad Lineal. Archivo
Regional de la Comunidad de Madrid.

Chapter 4: Connectivity as a strategy 89

 Howard
Ebenezer Howard has been misunderstood as an urbanist for more than 100 years. According
to Hall (1996), his critics said that he was in favor of planning with low densities, while in fact his
project was thought to have the same density of London. His Garden City was confused with a
suburban garden, while he was proposing the planning of a conurbation with hundreds of thou-
sands, maybe millions of inhabitants. He dreamed on self-governed communities; Howard wanted
to rebuild the capitalist society onto a number of cooperative societies in a network. Howard was
less interested in the physical forms than in the social process, however, by looking carefully in
his diagrams published in 1898, his concept of the Garden City was multi-scalar, and networked,
as a “group of slumless, smokeless cities” (see diagram Ill. 59). While speaking of connection as a
concept in urbanism, Howard and Cerdà presented the first proposals of social connections as a
reflection of spatial connection in their models.

Illustration 59:
A diagram by Ebenezer Howard, illustrating
a network. Hertfordshire County Council

Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier saw the city as a collection of file-drawers (Jacobs, 1961). With his mechanical con-
ception of the city as a mosaic of areas with separated functions, the corbusian city forces the
connections within it (mostly auto-mobility connections), trough easily-saturating channels, pro-
ducing a blatant fragmentation of the urban territory, due to his disregard of local, transversal
connections. (Ill. 60)

Illustration 60:
Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse. Fondation Le
Corbusier, Paris.

90 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 He was rather interested in the kinetics (a legacy of the Futurist movement) of the network. No
adaptiveness or systemic vision can be found in his concepts. Thus, the connections that can be
found in Le Corbusier’s work are rather longitudinal.

Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright authored Broadacre City, a project of urban utopia. Like Cerdà, Howard and
Soria y Mata, Wright intended to eliminate the negative consequences that a city suffers from
real-estate property, in particular, too high densities; he proposed that every urban citizen would
at least own an acre of land. It is thought that Wright was not applying the productivist impera-
tive of the “progressive urbanism”; on the contrary, he places himself on a wider perspective of
generalized social communication…“this tissue connected, reconnected and interconnected by a
complete and efficient nervous system”…the biological image used by Wright restores the three
dimensions of the modern network: topology, kinetics and adaptiveness (Dupuy, 1991). Broada-
cre is based mainly in a networked longitudinal, global set of connections through motorways
(Ill. 61). Transversal local connections would occur in a given intersection of longitudinal connec-
tions (for instance, service stations).

Illustration 61:
A Wright’s diagram for Broadacre City.
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scotts-
dale, Arizona.

Alexander
Perhaps one of Christopher Alexander’s main contributions to a theory about connection in the
urban tissue is his explanation of the difference in connectivity between the tree and the semi-lat-
tice, being both terms from graph theory applicable to the city, especially after recognizing the
reason in Jane Jacob’s claim of the city as an organized complexity problem, which is in part a
problem of multiple connections. A tree structure based on 20 elements can contain at most 19
further subsets. A semi-lattice based on the same 20 elements, can contain more than 1’000,000
different subsets. The semi-lattice is a structure where complexity is likely to be achieved; the
tree, although is a structure familiar to human brain for simplifying ideas is a structure in which
complexity is not achievable because it has not enough connections. The modernistic urbanism,
sometimes called “progressive” has adopted the tree as its organizing structure, thus contribut-
ing to fragmentation rather than to connection. According to Alexander, “a city is not, cannot and
must not be a tree” (Alexander, 1965). Alexander favors local, transversal connections over global
and longitudinal ones. This idea was later developed by Nikos Salingaros. ( Ill. 62, 63)

Chapter 4: Connectivity as a strategy 91

 Illustration 62:
Tree. Christopher Alexander

Illustration 63:
Semilattice. Christopher Alexander

Virilio
The telecommunications networks with diverse telematic services are on its way to making real an
ideal of a ubiquitous topology, immediate, transitive and reflexive, the principle of a new urbanity
(Dupuy, 2001). This idea is presented by Paul Virilio in an allegoric manner, announcing the end of
vertical density and of horizontal communications, of the privilege of the center over the periph-
ery, he predicts the transition from activity to interactivity, from the central to the nodal and the
advent of a display of a generalized eccentricity, a kind of never-ending periphery, a sign of the
overcoming of the industrial urban form (Virilio, 1987 in Dupuy, 1991). Virilio’s ideas are presented
as most emphatic on kinetics (for him, displacement would be achieved without movement) but
with no emphasis at all in topology and adaptiveness (Dupuy, 1991).

Salingaros
Nikos A. Salingaros is regarded as one of the world’s leading urbanists and architectural theorists.
His books “Principles of Urban Structure” and “A Theory of Architecture” provide the foundation for
a completely new approach to the built environment. The theory of the urban web published by
Salingaros since 1998 is a fundamental theoretical basis of this thesis. Professor Salingaros has
provided new scientific discoveries about connections in the urban web and his theory is the
base of the spatial hypotheses in the present work. In this review we will only mention his lengthy
collaboration with Christopher Alexander that has proved to be prolific for both scientists of the
urban phenomenon and very supportive for a still small but growing group of followers in theory
and practice around the world, with support specifically needed in connections and networks in
the urban form-giving process. His work appears quoted here, in the “connections” chapter, and
in many other sections of this thesis, especially in the following “networks” chapter.

92 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

4 Strategic charters for connection.

The New Charter of Athens and the Charter of the New Urbanism.
After having done a brief diachronic review of ideas, concepts and theories about connection in the
urban realm, in this section we will examine briefly the current trends in pro of urban connection and
against fragmentation in Europe and North America.
Since Sustainability became a concern of governments and some of the form-giving actors of the city,
social and economic issues have been added to the spatial-environmental agenda for achieving sus-
tainable urban form, making it quite more complex, as reality requires. In the last decade, two growing
movements of what could call sustainable urbanism have taken form and issued their corresponding
charters: the Congress for the New Urbanism in North America, issued in 1996 the Charter of the New
Urbanism (CNU); and the European Council of Town Planners issued in 2003 the New Charter of Athens
(NCA). These two movements are the most recent and updated intent by organized groups of practic-
ing urbanists, to provide guidelines (and strategies) to give form to sustainable cities. This chapter,
connection as a strategy, is obliged to make reference to the strategies proposed by these two move-
ments, through their charters.
In many ways, we have found that the two charters are complementary: while the Charter of the New
Urbanism is structured through the different spatial scales from the region to the building, the New
Charter of Athens is structured by addressing the issue of connection (connectivity) to the currently
admitted realms of sustainability: social, economic, environmental and of course spatial and informa-
tional.

Some city form-giving actors have accepted the reality of urban fragmentation when stating that the
main problem in our cities is the lack of connectivity, “not only in physical terms but in relation to time,
which affects social structures and cultural differences” (NCA).
The Charter of the New Urbanism and the New Charter of Athens are pro-connective statements against
fragmentation, reacting to more than a century of fragmenting planning practices. “Urban Planning
faces now the realisation that it had often had the precisely reverse effects to those it aspired” as Aksoy
and Robbins (1997) point out, by “assuming that orderly plans could make cities orderly, and in imag-
ining that urban space could ever be truly unitary and coherent, urban planning had often directly
supported the development of enclaves and the social fragmentation of urban space” (Graham and
Marvin, 2001).

The vision of a connected city is strategic to face the problem of fragmentation; it is of fundamental
importance to contemporary urbanism to think in terms of connection to add to the probabilities of
giving form to sustainable cities in this century. For this reason, which is the reason for this thesis to
be about connectivity, we will now discuss briefly about an integrated vision of the NCA and the CNU,
around the notion of the connected city4 .

An integrated vision of the NCA and the CNU.

(Designated keywords are enhanced in bold typography).

We are considering here two aspects for an integrated vision of the CNU and the NCA, first, the common
identification of issues or problems and second, the complementarities of conceptual and spatial pos

Chapter 4: Connectivity as a strategy 93

 sibilities for the sustainable, connected city of both documents. I find that the CNU’s principles are
mostly spatial and the NCA document is mostly conceptual. Having a common root in sustainability, I
also think that these two documents are of great complementary value for each other.

Problem statements

The CNU does is concise in making a problem statement:

“The Congress for the New Urbanism views disinvestment in central cities, the spread of placeless
sprawl, increasing separation by race and income, environmental deterioration, loss of agricultural
lands and wilderness, and the erosion of society’s built heritage as one interrelated community-build-
ing challenge”.
The NCA synthetic problem statement reads as follows: “Cities of the 21st century are becoming more
difficult to distinguish, as human activities, initially located within urban centres, are now spreading
widely into the hinterland, consuming rural and natural areas. Transportation and other infrastructure
networks, constructed to serve and connect these dispersed activities, actually fragment and degrade
space - the major non-renewable natural resource”.
Moreover, the NCA makes a more elaborate problem statement by the consignation of a series of issues
for cities:

Social issues.
Consistent with the analysis of fragmentation in chapter 2, accessibility is in a word the social issue of
the city in these days:
“Although travel times seem to shorten or disappear, it does not mean that accessibility increases for
all. Many deprived city dwellers are excluded from the benefits of modern communications, transpor-
tation, facilities and services. Areas for rich consumers often tend to develop within gated environ-
ments, whilst poor city-dwellers remain homeless or live in declining inner city areas and suburbia”.
And socio-spatial issues too:
“Increased disparity between different groups will result not only in changes in urban governance,
but also in large areas of deprivation, contrasting with high-quality development schemes for the new
economic activities and well-kept residential areas for privileged groups”.

Economic issues.
Also consistent with the analysis, the recurrent notion that global capitalism has had a high impact in
local economic processes is defined as an issue that leads to deprivation:
“…the globalization of the economy strengthens the impact of external factors upon urban develop-
ment. Whilst providing new opportunities, it often weakens the traditional local economy leading to
the depreciation of local assets and to the loss of economic and cultural ties between the city and its
regional surroundings. Without a responsive framework of local governance to protect the interests of
disadvantaged social groups, economic forces may also lead to social exclusion and deprivation”.
Econo-spatial changes are as well foreseen by the NCA:
“In economic terms, the globalization process manifests itself in a world-wide dispersal of produc-
tion as well as by concentration of management and functions in large cities. This may lead to the fast
growth of metropolitan regions at the expense of the rest of the settlement network”.

Environmental issues.
There is, of course, the recognition of the environmental question as a main issue:
“Unhealthy conditions in cities result from polluting activities and the production of waste. Less open
space, less biodiversity in cities pose a threat for the quality of city life and of public spaces. The state of

94 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

the urban fringe around most cities is declining. Agriculture and open spaces are giving way to build-
ings, structures and activities which are inappropriate in rural areas”.

Urban changes.
It is coincident with our perspective, that infrastructure has affected the most fragile networks of
mobility, the pedestrian networks of the city. Sprawl and the increasing dependence to the automo-
bile for accessibility are recognized as well as spatial issues:
“Better physical accessibility resulting from an improved transport infrastructure tends to create bar-
riers and obstacles, especially to slower modes of transportation and movement. As a result, domi-
nant physical structures lead to fragmentation of city neighbourhoods and landscape structures.
Sub-urbanization and the spread of urban functions to surrounding areas also lead to longer travel
distances and ultimately to deterioration in the quality of facilities and services. A decline in the use of
public transport and increased use of private cars adds to the problems of cities”.

Positions

The CNU is clear in defining its position:

“We stand for the restoration of existing urban centers and towns within coherent metropolitan
regions, the reconfiguration of sprawling suburbs into communities of real neighborhoods and diverse
districts, the conservation of natural environments, and the preservation of our built legacy.
We recognize that physical solutions by themselves will not solve social and economic problems, but
neither can economic vitality, community stability, and environmental health be sustained without a
coherent and supportive physical framework”.
“We advocate the restructuring of public policy and development practices to support the following
principles: neighborhoods should be diverse in use and population; communities should be designed
for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car; cities and towns should be shaped by physically defined
and universally accessible public spaces and community institutions; urban places should be framed
by architecture and landscape design that celebrate local history, climate, ecology, and building prac-
tice”.
“We are committed to reestablishing the relationship between the art of building and the making of
community, through citizen-based participatory planning and design”.

Connections of visions (NCA) and principles (CNU)5

1. Connection of scales.
The NCA defines a vision of a network of cities, with the goal of becoming connected. It focuses on the
connected City, which it is comprised by a number of connections acting in different scales. The CNU
is explicitly acting in a diversity of scales. As we will see later, the conception of principles of organizing
space in different scales, what we have called dynamic scales, is of fundamental importance for the
coherence of the urban web (Salingaros, 1998).
The CNU makes a specific reference to this:
“Metropolitan regions are finite places with geographic bound derived from topography, water sheds,
coastlines, farmlands, region al parks, and river basins. The metropolis is made of multiple centers
that are cities, towns, and villages, each with its own identifiable center and edges” (CNU 1).

2. Connection with information.

The NCA’s connected city includes visual and tactile connections to the built environment, enhancing
the human need of giving and receiving information through the urban space.

Chapter 4: Connectivity as a strategy 95

 Cities have been historically a deposit of collective knowledge, collective information about us. It is of
strategic importance to recognize this not so evident feature of cities and to rescue this value since it
has been consistently blurred in the 20th century city.
Imageability is addressed by the NCA, by asking for “efforts to create memorable urban environments
derived from specific genius loci, thus enhancing diversity and character” and correspondingly, the
CNU states that “architecture and landscape design should grow from local climate, topography, his-
tory, and building practice” (CNU 24)
The NCA goes for the “maintenance and cultivation of a high level of aesthetic excellence in all parts
of the urban networks”, and the CNU warns that “individual architectural projects should be seamlessly
linked to their surroundings,” transcending style (CNU 20).
The information embedded in cities through time is part of the collective memories of communities,
thus the CNU states that “the development and redevelopment of towns and cities should respect
historical patterns, precedents, and boundaries” (CNU 6).
Clear information in the city fosters identity and identity conveys pertaining: “The neighborhood, the
district, and the corridor are the essential elements of development and redevelopment in the metrop-
olis. They form identifiable areas that encourage citizens to take responsibility for their maintenance
and evolution” (CNU 10). Identity is also reinforced by “preservation and renewal of historic buildings,
districts, and landscapes [which] affirm the continuity and evolution of urban society” (CNU 27).
In the CNU, there is concern for the imageability of the city: “Civic buildings and public gathering places
require important sites to reinforce community identity and the culture of democracy. They deserve
distinctive form, because their role is different from that of other buildings and places that constitute
the fabric of the city” (CNU 25), also “the economic health and harmonious evolution of neighbor-
hoods, districts, and corridors can be improved through graphic urban design codes that serve as
predictable guides for change (CNU 17).

3. Connection of ideas and efforts: participation and collaboration.

There is a strong social bias in the NCA and the CNU. Both documents are counting so much in the
value of collaboration, which in my view is a remarkable change of mind, from the dominating para-
digm of competition.
The former identifies the future welfare of humanity with the consideration of people as individuals
and at the same time as “communities connected to society as a whole”.
The NCA proposes that a new form of governance is needed, involving all the stake holders and tack-
ling social problems. This proposal is very well complemented by the CNU commitment or re-estab-
lishing the connection between “the art of building and the making of community”, by the means of
citizen-based participatory planning and design.
This participation of the community in the decisions that directly affect it is a widely recognized prin-
ciple of sustainability and may help tackling social problems. The NCA proposes that “new systems of
representation and participation will be developed, making full use of easier access to information and
the wider involvement of active citizens’ networks, thus giving them all -residents and users- a voice on
the future of their urban environment”. This future is probable due to the development of new forms of
connection of Information Technologies with new democratic participatory processes (Tisma, 2001).
The CNU reinforces the notion of metropolitan cooperation: “revenues and resources can be shared
more cooperatively among the municipalities and centers within regions to avoid destructive compe-
tition for tax base and to promote rational coordination of transportation, recreation, public services,
housing, and community institutions” (CNU 9).

96 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

4. (Social) Connection of people: accessibility
The NCA expects that new technologies will also take part in the configuration of the connected city in
the form of transport for persons, materials and information. IT will also take an important part in the
reconfiguration of the transportation systems in cities.
The NCA assumes that the city which is socially connected will be able to provide a high degree of
security and a sense of ease. It predicts that “new forms of social and economic structures will provide
the diverse framework required to eliminating social disruption created by imbalances”, but it does
not points out how, neither when prognosticating that “housing and services will become increasingly
accessible”.
The NCA is in favour of “measures to facilitate personal contacts and opportunities for leisure and
recreation”; the CNU states “a range of parks, from tot-lots and village greens to ball-fields and com-
munity gardens, should be distributed within neighborhoods. Conservation areas and open lands
should be used to define and connect different neighborhoods and districts” (CNU 18). Three other
principles of the CNU reinforce the idea of accessibility:
“Cities and towns should bring into proximity a broad spectrum of public and private uses to sup-
port a regional economy that benefits people of all incomes. Affordable housing should be distributed
throughout the region to match job opportunities and to avoid concentrations of poverty” (CNU 7).
“The physical organization of the region should be supported by a framework of transportation alter-
natives. Transit, pedestrian, and bicycle systems should maximize access and mobility through out the
region while reducing dependence upon the automobile” (CNU 8).
“Within neighborhoods, a broad range of housing types and price levels can bring people of diverse
ages, races, and incomes into daily interaction, strengthening the personal and civic bonds essential to
an authentic community” (CNU 13).

5. Connection with positive economic cycles

While the general economic trend in the globalized world is polarization, the NCA says that cities will
be called upon making strategic choices about their economic orientation, to interpret in local terms
the demands and processes of globalization. It says that local and regional economies will be increas-
ingly connected to the economies of other cities and regions. But, how are cities supposed to achieve
this?
There is in the same NCA a small statement which I think can be the answer: with a “high degree of
multi-level connectivity”. Also, the New Urbanism movement has been insisting in seeking out new
forms of fostering the local economy developing.
Multi-scale economic connectivity should be understood as the positive and cyclic connection
between the local economic processes and the global ones. However, I think that the latter are more
important to build coherent connected communities.
The NCA goes further in the networked vision of economy, but we have to say that only in the city-scale.
It predicts that individual cities will be compelled to join various networks. This is a concept of cities as
nodes, connected physically, virtually or both. These networks are predicted to be of similarly special-
ized cities (cooperation networks); of different specializations (complementary networks); exchanging
of goods and services networks (commercial networks); or networks of cities sharing common inter-
ests, linked together to strengthen their competitiveness (strategic networks).
I think that economic connectivity will have to be built-up from the local-local processes, probably
operating at the neighbourhood scale, two or three scalar steps smaller than the city scale. Jane Jacobs
(2004) has reported the case of a Canadian community that has produced extraordinary economic
indicators, based on networked economic cooperation and complementation, Brampton. “Brampton
has an unusually large, attractive and urban core. Brampton makes a deliberate effort to retain its immi-
grants, attaching them firmly to the community by its quality of life, its schools and its opportunities.

Chapter 4: Connectivity as a strategy 97

 Brampton has one of the lowest crime rates in Canada, and it may be one of the country’s most cosmo-
politan and economically sophisticated communities.” (Jacobs, 2004).
The NCA proposes, but not defines “measures to ensure the individual and collective feeling of secu-
rity, a key element to guarantee urban well-being”; the CNU advices that “the revitalization of urban
places depends on safety and security. The design of streets and buildings should reinforce safe envi-
ronments, but not at the expense of accessibility and openness” (CNU 21).

6. Connection with the environment: Conservation

The NCA recognizes the environmentally wise use of resources as the most urgent issue in the 21st cen-
tury. It is a must to manage the inputs and outputs of resources carefully, with a connection with the
real needs, “using innovative technologies and reducing, re-using and recycling them to the highest
possible degree”. The city will become a “self-sufficient connected system”.
A spatial aspect of the environmental connectivity strategy of the NCA is that all people will have the
opportunity to live and work in proximity, “connected to well-maintained elements of cultural and
natural heritage”. Moreover, this aspect can be related to accessibility not only to natural and cultural
areas, but to other networks of the city, like transportation, economic, etc.
NCA: “Conservation through planning of all significant elements of natural and cultural heritage, and
the protection and expansion of open space networks”; CNU: “The metropolis has a necessary and
fragile relationship to its agrarian hinterland and natural landscapes. The relationship is environmen-
tal, economic, and cultural. Farm land and nature are as important to the metropolis as the garden is
to the house” (CNU 3).

7. Connection in urban space: Spatial connectivity

Spatial connectivity is treated in the NCA as “enhancement” of the essential functions of the city, bet-
ting strongly on urban design as a key element of the “renaissance” of cities. Coincident principles of
the NCA and the CNU in this enhancement are:
“The revival of urban design to protect and enhance streets, squares, footpaths and other thorough-
fares as key linkages in the urban framework” (NCA) is not a call to rediscover urban design as a tool,
but it is pointing out the need to identify, preserve, restore and increase the most fragile but neces-
sary connectors of the urban tissue: the pedestrian roadspace; CNU’s principle number 12 is directly
related to such enhancement: “many activities of daily living should occur within walking distance,
allowing independence to those who do not drive, especially the elderly and the young. Intercon-
nected networks of streets should be designed to encourage walking, reduce the number and length
of automobile trips, and conserve energy” (CNU, 12). Other directly related principles are: “in the con-
temporary metropolis, development must adequately accommodate automobiles. It should do so
in ways that respect the pedestrian and the form of public space (CNU, 22) and “streets and squares
should be safe, comfortable, and interesting to the pedestrian. Properly configured, they encourage
walking and enable neighbors to know each other and protect their communities” (CNU 23).
The “rehabilitation of degraded or inhumanly planned pieces of the urban fabric” (NCA) goes very
much in the sense of connected the “holes” of the network. The CNU has a clear principle of promoting
infill developments and other strategies to achieve this rehabilitation: “Development patterns should
not blur or eradicate the edges of the metropolis. Infill development within existing urban areas con-
serves environmental resources, economic in vestment, and social fabric, while reclaiming marginal
and abandoned areas. Metropolitan regions should develop strategies to encourage such infill devel-
opment over peripheral expansion” (CNU 4).

98 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

5 Perspectives of connection

Complementary perspectives of connection.

Perhaps one of the origins of the problem of fragmentation is the partial perspective of “connection”
from which the urban realm has been treated. While being a connection for somebody, the same “con-
nector” can be the entire contrary for others. This is the case of the much criticized overimposition of
connective structures over urban tissue.

Salingaros on connections
We have to bear in mind that connections may take various forms: geometrical coupling of struc-
tures next to each other (Salingaros, 2000a), visual coupling between a person and the informa-
tion in a structure (Mikiten, Salingaros et al., 2000; Salingaros, 1999), interaction between human
beings, pedestrian coupling of two geometrical or functional nodes via a footpath (Salingaros,
1998), transportation coupling via road or subway between widely separated nodes (Salingaros,
1998). To this end, Salingaros proposes that a city may be decomposed in various distinct ways:

1. Into buildings as basic units (as is usually done) and their interactions via paths (Salingaros,
2000).
The first perspective and most common in the city of today is a perspective of connection
between isolated buildings (should we say objects?) in a given urban realm. As we can see, this
is the recurrent perspective of modernism, with mostly longitudinal connections.
2. As a collection of paths anchored and guided by buildings (Salingaros, 1998).
The second is a perspective from the point of view of the connectors as a set, depending on
buildings. In this case, the path collection is in a way a result of the boundaries and geometric
conditions that buildings “impose”.
3. As external and internal spaces connected by paths and reinforced by buildings (Alexander,
2001; Salingaros, 1999).
The third perspective is more interactive: internal and external spaces connected by paths
and reinforced by buildings. This perspective reminds of Nolli’s plan of Rome.
4. As the edges and interfaces that define spaces and built structures (Alexander, 2001; Salinga-
ros, 2000a).
In the fourth perspective, the connectors (edges and interfaces) define urban space and build-
ings (built structures), which is a perspective imaginable only in historical cities that have had
a long interactive process of evolution of patterns and structures.
5. Into patterns of human activity and interaction occurring at urban edges and interfaces (Alex-
ander, Ishikawa et al., 1977; Salingaros, 2000b).
The fifth perspective is about looking at the city (structure) through the study of human activ-
ity (patterns) and the interaction, defining the scenario for this interaction as interface, which
is an important concept for this thesis.
There is also the concept that a live city has a healthy combination of all of the approaches to
connection listed above.

Chapter 4: Connectivity as a strategy 99

 Longitudinal and transversal connections.
The ways in which a city is decomposed and understood are directly related to the perspectives of con-
nection, i.e. the way a given group looks at connection. This awareness is important in this thesis where
we are going to take a position about connections, to address the problem of fragmentation.
We want to point out the most extreme difference it two concepts of connection in the city regarding
interfaces for mobility and information. This is the difference between the longitudinal and the trans-
versal perspectives of these connections.
Longitudinal connections tie along the urban tissues, generally in a surgical, cutting manner; trans-
versal connections bond across the urban tissue, in a smaller scale, with an integrative intention. An
analogy is here appropriate: the machine for the longitudinal and the organism for the transversal
connections go very much in the sense of the analysis of fragmentation made in table 1 of chapter 2.
We can find relationships of longitudinal and transversal connections with patterns of spatial organiza-
tion, of structural organization, patterns of space-time relation, patterns of behavior and patterns of
values in the city.

The longitudinal connection can be associated with artificial structures and a mechanical normative
model of the city, presenting a top-down process; it corresponds to a geopolitical organization model
based on transport, with a power exertion by capital, a relation of power by property and a morphol-
ogy orientation to transport. The longitudinal connection is primarily devised for accessibility, with
a territorial ideal of the grid. It is derived from a rational, linear and Euclidean pattern of thought and
could be associated with a set of values of expansion, competition and dominance.

Longitudinal connections are fabricated6 with a sectorial vision; this is with a concern to connect only
the same network to which they belong.
Transversal connections are generated with an integrative vision, with a concern to connect two or
more different networks or systems in the urban realm. Transversal connections are interfaces.

Connections and the concept of interface

What is an interface?
Interface is the place at which independent and often interrelated systems meet and act or communi-
cate with each other (Page and Phillips7 ). In the city, interfaces can be either for interaction (mobility)
or for communication.
Alexander and his colleagues realized that connective interfaces are essential to creating urban coher-
ence. Geometrical interfaces are the city’s active units, but only if they successfully couple the objects
on either side (Salingaros, 2000a). Interfaces are edges representing linear elements, along which a
city’s “life” is generated.
The connective interface between people, green spaces, urban spaces, and built surfaces is just as
important as the interface between cars and people. We connect most strongly on the most intimate
scales (Mikiten et. al., 2000; Salingaros, 1999).

Fractal interfaces.
Urban interfaces ought to exist on many different scales (Salingaros, 2001). Traditional urban geometry
is characterized by fractal interfaces (Batty and Longley, 1994; Bovill, 1996; Frankhauser, 1994 in Salin-
garos, 2001). The simplest definition of a fractal is a structure that shows complexity at any magnifica-
tion. Continuous straight-line or plane boundaries and edges dividing one region from another are an
exception rather than the rule in living cities. A successful urban interface resembles either a perme-

100 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

able membrane with holes to allow for interchange, or a folded curtain with an edge that looks like a
meandering river on a plan. Urban interfaces have to be fractal just because biological interfaces are
(Salingaros, 2001).
Also according to Salingaros, “fractal interfaces join built structure to open space, and offer the catalyst
for the play among natural urban forces and activities. Folding in the urban fabric is a useful coupling
on all scales, from the folds of an architectural element at 1 cm, all the way up to the urban folding that
creates a semi-enclosed plaza. Nevertheless, the human connection is established by folding on the
human scale” (2000).
“The fractal nature of urban interfaces follows independently from three entirely different starting
points: (1) maximizing geometrical couplings between urban regions on either side of an interface; (2)
providing a setting that will catalyze human interactions; (3) the need for a sensory connection to the
user” (Salingaros, 2000).

Pedestrian interfaces.
In order to connect to another network, the elements that use the first network have to transfer through
an interface into the second network. Where flow is involved, it has to SLOW DOWN by entering fractal
(i.e., progressively narrower) channels leading to the interface. By contrast, a network SPEEDS UP its
flow by undoing fractal structure through streamlining. In the first case, geometrical constraints create
a lowest level like the capillaries in the human circulation system, where the flow occurs at its slowest
and most diffuse, though still fed by the circulation network. Capillarity is the opposite of rapid flow.
At the highest level of the network, the strongest channels are wide and smooth to optimize rapid
flow (Salingaros, 2000). Success of urban space depends on visual and auditory connections between
a pedestrian and the surrounding built surfaces. The appropriate boundaries for urban space were
derived by considering the geometrical optics of information transmission. Interfaces that maximize
signals are either perforated, or convoluted, whereas straight edges are poor transmitters (Salingaros,
1999).

Interface in this thesis.

It is important to define the geometry of the space for interaction (interface) in which this thesis is
going to focus. As we have seen, the strongest connections happen at the smallest interfaces, i.e. the
interfaces for the pedestrian interaction with the city, and this interaction can be for mobility and / or
information.
This is the interface in which this research is focused, the interface for the pedestrian interaction with
space, with information and with other systems (like the car system).

Complexity
Interfaces are in a few words, fractal because they show complexity at different magnifications, they
belong not to one but to many scales in the urban realm; they are non-linear because the process of
interaction that they enclose is complex too; they are dynamic since they are far from equilibrium and
they are complex and integrative because they engage and connect two or more systems. In a word,
interfaces are complex, of the kind of complexity that Jane Jacobs pointed out more than 40 years ago!
She clearly defined what kind of a problem a city is: an organized complexity problem which is the way
we are to address the issue of connections in this thesis. “Cities happen to be problems of organized
complexity, like the life sciences. They present situations in which a half a dozen or even several dozen
quantities are all varying simultaneously an in subtly interconnected ways. Cities again, do not exhibit
one problem in organized complexity, which if understood explains all. They can be analyzed into
many such problems or segments which, as in the case of life sciences, are also related with one

Chapter 4: Connectivity as a strategy 101

 another. The variables are many but they are not helter-skelter; they are interrelated into an organic
whole” (Jacobs, 1961).
Jane Jacobs also recommended three steps to better understand cities:
1. To think about processes;
2. To work inductively, reasoning from particulars to the general, rather than the reverse;
3. To seek for “unaverage” clues involving very small quantities, which reveal the way larger and
“more average” quantities are operating. (Jacobs, 1961)
For cities, processes are of the essence. Once one thinks about city processes, it follows that one must
think of catalysts of these processes, and this too is of the essence (Jacobs, 1961).

Networks: a perspective of complexity.

The focus on connection we need to counteract fragmentation as a problem statement can be further
detailed with some preliminary conclusions of this section:
This thesis will focus on connections as processes.
This thesis will focus on connections in the city, more particularly, on connections for pedestrian inter-
action with other systems, thus studying the interface for pedestrian connection as a subject.
In this thesis, we will work inductively, by proposing connections by urban projects at different scales,
as catalysts for the process of connection and re-connection.
But, which is the more adequate way to study organized complexity? To think and study about proc-
esses in an organized complex organism? To work inductively?
The answer to these questions lays in the “new science” of networks, or more precisely, in considering
the city as a network. The city can (should) be studied as a network, the urban web.

6. Conclusions: connection in this thesis

What to connect?
Mobility networks. Fragmentation observed and interpreted above suggest intervention by connect-
ing the mobility networks, starting by the smallest scale (Salingaros 1998), growing in connectivity by
increasing the quantity and quality of connections in the same small scale, and connecting it as well
with larger scales which in turn will develop more connectivity. Increasing connectivity means better
mobility conditions and most of all, better accessibility. These three phenomena are themselves inter-
twined as well as with spatial, social and economic phenomena that we cannot dissociate again.
Car and pedestrian. While the physical relation of the automobile with its user is scientifically studied
by ergonomics in industrial design, little is known of scientific studies about the relationships of cars
and the pedestrian user of the city. This is a new, urban ergonomics field yet to be connected in the
near future.
Disciplines. For centuries, our understanding of reality has been divided into a number of isolated
compartments that sometimes relate to each other. This compartmentalisation of knowledge has con-
tributed to bring fragmentation to our structures. In recent times, new exciting connections between
disciplines have appeared shedding new light into knowledge. Physicists are now exploring biology
(Capra), mathematicians are building scientific theories of the built environment and emergence syn-
chronisation (Salingaros, Strogatz), sociologists and industrial engineers are helping to build up a sci-
ence of networks (Watts, Dupuy) and economists are using networks and IT as tools for designing the

102 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

city of the possible future (Drewe). Like Sue Roaf once said: “it is so enriching to step one foot out of
your discipline”.
Scales. Disciplinary division has taken our knowledge even to a fragmentation by scales. Sibling disci-
plines in three-dimensional design are separated that way. Industrial design, architecture, urban and
regional design have many things which they can learn from each other, being a common aim of these
disciplines the satisfaction of the needs of people (?). Connecting scales also means to regain coher-
ence in our environment. We have observed and interpreted a broken inverse power scaling in our
cities, result in part of the scale separation of our thoughts about them. In fact, all the scales are inter-
connected and should be approached interconnected, in a dynamic scale framework.
Space and time. Our way to look at the world has separated time from space as well. Our spatial disci-
plines are finally taking time back into account and this inclusion is bringing the real needs of people
back into consideration (Drewe).
Economic cycles. In our globalized reality, these cycles are also fragmented, making the gap between
rich and poor wider every time. Network thinking and furthermore, network science can help us to
connect economic cycles, providing their proven feature of behaving in networks with emergent
properties, This issue is related with the growth of our cities (or should I say built environment) and can
be connected up to the spaces of mobility, where investments are currently sectorially focused.
Social groups. Our cities have become fragmented as well in the sense of separating social groups.
This is by no means a new feature; social segregation in the city has existed ever since they emerged
(Kostof, 1991). But the difference is that the modern city has less and less spaces for social interaction.
Public spaces of the pre-modern city worked well as mixers of social groups, but public spaces in the
modern and post-modern city have lost this quality.
Cultural and natural environment. Another point of fragmentation is this; artificial or cultural built envi-
ronment had been separated from nature. A heritage of linear, reductionist thinking, modern built
environment has been constructed as if natural resources were unlimited and as if wastes could be
freely released into the biosphere. Unfortunately, this paradigm was in its peak when most of the
urban built environment in the world was built. Civilisation is starting to react to this misfeat. The point
is to reconnect nature and culture in our built environments.
Physical and virtual structures. Although the internet has many lessons to be learned by spatial planners
and designers, just a few contemporary spatial planner-thinkers have proposed the serious consid-
eration of this network for study to adequate the practice of the urban form-giving (Mitchell, Drewe).
New scientific discoveries about the way the internet is organised, concepts as growth, preferential
attachment and fitness (Barabási, et al.) suggest new avenues in this connection with city design and
planning, especially with the spaces of mobility.

Where to connect?
Global and local processes currently belong to separated networks. While global capital acts in local
scenarios, its performance as a welfare generator is poor, as poor are the benefits local structures get
from global investments. Social disconnection also is present between global and local patterns of
organisation, a consequence of economic as well as technological socio-fragmentation, mainly con-
cerned with mobility and information divides all over the world. Global environmental processes are as
well cause and outcome of local patterns; conceptual connection in this relationship is also network-
oriented.
Fragmented tissues of our cities are another field to study and connect. The continuity of them has been
broken by infrastructure that has become structure and sometimes suprastructure which serves only a
part of the total. When an infrastructure is introduced to connect on a given layer of the city, there is a
consequent disconnection in another (Graham and Marvin 2001). New forms of connecting

Chapter 4: Connectivity as a strategy 103

 infrastructure to the whole are needed and this concerns mainly infrastructures for mobility which are
expected to be the more physically impacting in cities in the years to come.
Connections are to be made where overimpositions of infrastructure have occurred. At different scales,
the spaces of mobility have been overimposed to formerly existing structures of the city or their
imposition prevents the city structure to evolve with a natural order. Overimpositions of structures for
commercial communications (advertisement) are also subject of intervention to be re-conceptualised
and connected to the whole. Overimpositions occur in the modern city where the car has been privi-
leged over pedestrian space; where global structures have been given priority over local ones; where
infrastructures of mobility of people, goods, information, energy and resources dissect tissues. In fact,
opportunities to connect are everywhere.

How to connect?
As an architect, my first answer is “through urban projects”, but in fact I think the answer lays in a team-
work between urban projects and urban planning, a combination of bottom-up and top-down proc-
esses to make interventions in the city. The issue here is to find this “third way” suggested by Salingaros
as a balanced approach. Urban projects emerge in every urban scale, not only as large-scaled-inter-
ventions, thus, they come from either top-down or bottom-up methods, depending of their origin. In
the same sense, planning can be top-down planning as in the master planning tradition, or bottom-
up as in the strategic planning school of thought. I think that the combination is adequate when the
inductive approach of urban projects is well connected to the deductive approach of planning.
Connections can be fully integrated (Capra 2002) when linking simultaneously into actions process
and meaning (communication actions), process and patterns (strategic actions) and process and struc-
ture (instrumental actions).

Spaces of mobility, while causing fragmentation in the urban realm with their common longitudinal
conception, provide an opportunity for an instrumental approach to connection. Increasing connec-
tivity in the city can result in better mobility conditions and most of all in better accessibility in the
city, not only from spatial but from the economic, social and environmental perspectives. Increasing
connectivity in the city is thus a step forward their sustainability.
Being the spaces of mobility a strategic crucible of disciplines, fields of study, and interesting people,
transport, information, the study of the ways we consider mobility is relevant in the measure it can
provide us with new concepts of what, where and how to connect.
One of the most important connections to be fulfilled is that linking the people-mobility network
with the information-mobility network; the contemporary spaces of mobility for people and the fast
emerging new information technologies.
New and exciting perspectives for connections appear in our time, with the simultaneous emergence
of the information technologies, scientific principles of urban structures and discoveries on the organ-
ized complexity of networks.

104 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Endnotes
1. New kinds of “virtual” connective systems, or networks, might be operating mainly in the relation-
ship between kinetics and adaptiveness.
2. Since these review is based largely in the work of Dupuy’s ’Urbanisme des Reseaux, connections
are mostly explained through the notion of networks, a notion that is further explored in chapter
5.
3. The relationship between node and link, defined at all scales will be later be developed scientifi-
cally by Salingaros. This notion of scale-connectedness is of crucial importance in the connection
of structures and patterns.
4. A strong theoretical connection between the NCA and the CNU lays in the work of Nikos A. Salin-
garos. He advised the European Council of town planners in the NCA process and defines himself
as a “champion” of the New Urbanism. In the next section, we will take a closer look at Professor
Salingaros’ Principles of the Urban Structure.
5. References to specific principles of the New Urbanism are between parentheses, i.e. (CNU 1).
6. Fabricated and generated are terms coined by Christopher Alexander. (V. The Nature of Order), that
clearly differentiate the artificial from the natural, very much in the sense we want to differentiate
the longitudinal and the transversal connections.
7. A definition by Scott Page and Brian Phillips’ participation in the Delft School of Design inaugural
conference in Delft, 2004.

Chapter 4: Connectivity as a strategy 105

106 Connectivity-oriented urban projects
Empirical Cycle
107
108 Connectivity-oriented urban projects
5 The City as a Network

Evaluation

1. Introduction
After the first modernity’s zonal view of the city, that proved to be ineffective to deal with the complex-
ity of the urban phenomenon, new scientific discoveries in the “new” science of networks are provid-
ing the fundament for innovative approaches to the phenomenon that might be able to deal with such
complexity in a more effective way.
One of the more urgent issues to deal with is that of urban fragmentation, a condition that has always
existed in cities, but does now with an exacerbation provoked in the last 150 years by an explosive
expansion of the urban structures with fragmentary patterns of use.
In this chapter, we intend to give fundament to the change of the conceptual model to study connec-
tions in the city, from the zonal, mechanistic to the networked, holistic. A change of approaches in
science corresponds to the kind of problems science has progressively learned to deal with, however
conserving features from “primitive” scientific paradigms to address problems of a higher complexity
and organization.
First, we explore fundaments to establish that the city is a problem of organized complexity. We remark
the properties of complex systems as a reference to the kind of system we deal with when studying
the city. We start from Jane Jacobs’ differentiation of the three kinds of scientific approaches to the
city, further explained with the help of McCarthy’s table of scientific and philosophical mindscapes, or
worldviews, associating the features of these mindscapes with the abstractions of the city, from the
zone to the network. Then, the evolution of scientific approaches up to the relatively recently discov-
ered complex systems is discussed, then aligning these approaches with their corresponding scientific
methods, from the Cartesian calculus, to the stochastic probability and statistics arriving to the graph
theory and other methods to come to observe and assess complex systems. Observation and assess-
ment are addressed here as the main components of the empirical side of science.
We explore the possibility of considering cities as social networks, and with provisional answers to the
question “what kind of network a city is?” we propose the introduction of the “new” network science to
deal with the city, looking forward to organizing complexity as spatial planners and designers or rather
as spatial “form-giving actors”. This introduction of the new network science is first in general and then
in a specific form with principles of the urban web and rules for (geometrical) coherence (Salingaros),
being these last, associated with concepts that are thought to be useful for observation and assess-
ment of specific interventions (urban projects) in the city.

2. From the Zone to the Network.

Jane Jacobs identified in 1961 the kind of problem that a city is: a problem of organized complexity.
This identification has been winning scientific acceptance slowly but steadily through more than 40
years. However, the city keeps on being treated and studied mostly as a phenomenon of lesser com-
plexity and lesser organization.

Chapter 5: The City as a Network 109

 Based on the work of Magorah Maruyama (1977) and D.S Slocombe (1990), McCarthy (2000) has
described three “mindscapes” or philosophies of science, which is not an exhaustive set of epistemo-
logical types, but provides us with arguments to make a distinction between complex systems and the
two other more traditional scientific “mindscapes”: the Cartesian which is reductionist and mechanic
for organized simplicity and the stochastic that views the world through a nominalist2 sense.
The Cartesian scientific approach is the view of the universe as a machine that can be understood
simply by dismantling it and studying its components in detail. The stochastic is the scientific approach
that gave birth to the statistical analysis. Urban planning has been so far using mostly these two
approaches, as if dealing with a phenomenon of lesser complexity and lesser organization. In the 20th
century, cities were treated as a problem of disorganized complexity, in a stochastic way through sta-
tistical and probability methods, but it happens that cities are too complex systems for analysis and
too organized for statistics.
The chart on the right relates aleatoric processes or disorganization in the vertical axis and complexity
in the horizontal. The triangle (1) is the realm of the organized simplicity, the zone of machines and
mechanisms; the rectangle at the top (2) is the realm of disorganized complexity, the “stochastic” zone
of statistics, demographic studies, etc. and the figure in the center (3) is the realm of organized com-
plexity, a region too complex for analysis and too organized for statistics (Weinberg, 1975). This is the
area of study of complex systems, and thus, the area of study in which cities belong.

Illustration 64. Systems, complexity and organization.

110 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 What kind of problem a city is?
Jane Jacobs, 1961.

Simplicity in urban planning

The two major variables in [Howard’s] Garden City concept of planning were the quantity of hous-
ing (or population) and the number of jobs. These two were conceived of as simply and directly
related to each other, in the form of relatively closed systems…planning theory has persistently
applied this two variable system of thinking and analyzing to big cities; and to this day, planners
and housers believe they hold a precious nugget of truth about the kind of problem to be dealt
when they attempt to shape or reshape big city neighborhoods into versions of two-variable sys-
tems, with ratios of one thing (as open space) depending directly and simply upon an immediate
ratio of something else (as population).

Disorganized complexity in urban planning

The conception of the city as a collection of separate file drawers, that came into scene when
city planning theory began to assimilate the newer ideas of on probability theory developed by
physical science, was suited very well by the Radiant City of Le Corbusier, that vertical and more
centralized version of the two-variable Garden City. The new probability techniques and the
assumptions about the kind of problem that underlay the way they have been used in city plan-
ning, did not supplant the base idea of the two-variable reformed city. Rather these new ideas
were added. Simple, two-variable systems of order were still the aim, but these could be organ-
ized more ‘rationally’ now, from out a supposed existing system of disorganized complexity. In
short, the new probability and statistical methods gave more ‘accuracy’, more scope, made pos-
sible a more Olympian view and treatment of the supposed problem of the city.

By carrying to logical conclusions the thesis that the city, as it exists, is a problem in disorganized
complexity, housers and planners reached – apparently with straight faces – the idea that almost
any specific malfunctioning could be corrected by opening and filling a new file drawer…with
statistical and probability techniques, it also became possible to create formidable and impressive
planning surveys for cities – surveys that come out with fanfare, are read by practically nobody,
and then drop quietly into oblivion, as well as they might, being nothing more nor less than rou-
tine exercises in statistical mechanics for systems of disorganized complexity. It became possible
also to map out master plans for the statistical city, and people take this more seriously, for all we
are accustomed to believe that maps and reality are necessarily related, or that if they not, we can
make them so by altering reality (Jacobs, 1961).

Organized complexity and city planning

Life sciences have been providing some of the concepts that city planning needs: along with
providing the basic strategy of recognizing problems of organized complexity, they have pro-
vided hints about analyzing and handling this kind of problem. A growing number of people
have begun, gradually to think of cities as problems in organized complexity – organisms that are
replete with unexamined, but obviously intricately interconnected, and surely understandable,

Chapter 5: The City as a Network 111

 relationships. City planning as a field has stagnated. It bustles but it does not advance. Today’s
plans show little if any perceptible progress in comparison with plans devised a generation ago.
In some respects, there is outright retrogression. As long as city planners, and the businessmen,
lenders, and legislators who have learned from planners, cling to the unexamined assumptions
that they are dealing with a problem in the physical sciences, city planning cannot possibly
progress. Of course it stagnates. It lacks the first requisite for a body of practical and progress-
ing thought: recognition to the kind of problem at issue. Lacking this, it has found the shortest
distance to dead end (Jacobs, 1961).

Three mindscapes
Jacobs knew well the Cartesian analysis and the stochastic probability and statistics methods but
when she wrote “Death and Life…” little was known about methods to deal with complex systems, so
as it can be read above, rather than describing or proposing a method to deal with complex systems,
she fustigated urban planning. The distinction that Jane Jacobs proposed for understanding the urban
phenomenon has deep implications in the conceptual tools that had been generally used in urban
planning. There is a remarkable conceptual change in the scientific approaches from the Cartesian for
organized simplicity, to the Stochastic for disorganized complexity and up to the complex systems
approach for organized complexity. Here we try to synthesize the features of these changes by com-
paring parts of some of them based on a scheme developed by McCarthy (2000; after Maruyama, 1977
and Slocombe, 1990).

Philosophy
Aims at some kind of understanding, knowledge or wisdom about fundamental matters such as real-
ity, knowledge, meaning, value, being and truth. In the Cartesian model, abstraction has sometimes
more realism that concrete things and the parts are subordinated to the whole. Since the Cartesian
model has been the dominating in the last centuries, an explanation can be found for the also domi-
nating mental scheme of a “tree” which corresponds very well to this Cartesian philosophy.
In the stochastic model only the individual elements are real; society is merely an aggregate of indi-
viduals, which supports very well the current individualistic culture.
In the complex systems model, there are heterogenization, symbiotization and evolution. Symbiosis is
due to diversity. There is a generation of diversity and patterns of symbiosis over time. Non-linearity:
Complex Systems behave as a whole: they cannot be understood by simply decomposing into pieces
which are added or multiplied together.

Causality
Is here understood as the relating of causes to the effects they produce.
In the Cartesian worldview, there is a non-reciprocal causal model. Two things cannot cause each other.
Cause – effect relations may be deterministic3 or probabilistic4 .
In the stochastic mindscape, independent events are most natural, each having its own probability.
Non-random patterns and structures are improbable, and tend to decay.
In the complex systems view, morphogenetic, this is, form-generating causal loops generate patterns
of mutually beneficial relations among heterogeneous elements, and raise levels of sophistication of
the system.

112 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Fundamental dynamics
Are understood here as the more elementary knowledge generation dynamics.
In the Cartesian mindscape, fundamental dynamics are deterministic and causal; in the stochastic view,
they are acausal and random, while in the complex systems view, they are fundamentally random:
non-linear interactions creating uncertainty and instability or creative self-organization and order at
macroscale, characterized by self-organization and feedback [loops].

Cosmology
Seen here as the study of the formation, organization, and evolution of the universe.
In the Cartesian view, there is a hierarchy of categories, super-categories and sub-categories. There is
the sense of “one-ness” with the universe. Processes are repeatable if conditions are the same.
In the stochastic mindscape, the most probable state is random distribution of events with independ-
ent probability…structures decay.
In the complex systems worldview, there is a generation of new patterns by means of mutual interac-
tion with structures. Structures grow and evolve. There is heterogeneity, differentiation, symbiotiza-
tion and further heterogenization increase.

Reductionism
Explained here as the mindscape’s general attempt to explain and interpret phenomena by means of
analysis into simpler components and principles at a different level of analysis.
The Cartesian view is the paradigm of reductionism. The also reductionist position of the stochastic
worldview is a heritage from the Cartesian. However, the complex systems view, uses both analysis
and synthesis.

Certainty
In the Cartesian worldview, certainty is sought and expected; it bases its development in experts. In
the stochastic mindscape there is no certainty and in the complex systems view, certainty is neither
sought nor expected, it bases its development in specialized generalists.

Fundamental structure of nature

It is defined in the Cartesian view as atomic, separable into fundamental smallest parts. In the stochas-
tic, it is fundamentally random. In the complex systems view, it is holistic: structure and patterns con-
nect in a process of self-organization.

Types of change, i.e. the way the worldview evolves

The Cartesian has an incremental, linear change model; the stochastic has a random change and
random variability model and the complex systems have linear, stochastic and non-linear change;
random fluctuations that can be amplified by feedback loops. The concept of emergence pertains to
the types of changes the complex systems present.

Chapter 5: The City as a Network 113

 There are of course, specific implications for conceptual models for each one of the mindscapes.
In the Cartesian view, there is a hierarchic structure, linear change, reductionist epistemology and
there is one right or true model. The scientific goal is precise prediction.
In the stochastic view, there is a structure of independent events, where order decays and there is
always a random change. The scientific goal is to maintain the individual autonomy by probabilities.
In the complex worldview, there is a model of non-equilibrium, with at the same time linear, stochastic
and non-linear change. Nature is dynamic and evolving. The scientific goal is to maintain context for
self organization5 .

Description of the world

In the Cartesian view, the world is explained geographically which is rather a quantitative description
of a phenomenon in a given territory or zone. This is the origin of the zonal thinking in spatial plan-
ning.
In the stochastic mindscape, the description of the world is through probabilities: probable futures
that are more or less likely to happen.
The complex system’s view of the world is topological and rather qualitative and the description com-
prises questions from the network science, like:
• what is the boundary of the concept?
• is the concept connected, or does it consist of several components?
• are there holes in the concept?
• is the concept hollow?
• if the concept is transformed in some way, are the changes continuous or abrupt?
• is the concept bounded, or does it extend infinitely far?

Characterization of components
The Cartesian mindscape characterizes components as isolated objects. In the end, the smaller and the
more isolated is a component, the easier is to know it. In an urban context, the characterization is by
points in the space, i.e. by location (nodes).
In the stochastic mindscape, the characterization is composed by probabilities (connections between
two or three variables).
Spatial planning has been, according to Jacobs and others, stochastic. With statistical and probabilistic
techniques, stochastic planning has “mapped” the statistical city. This map, however has been far from
studying deeper the complexity of the city.

Properties of complex systems and

principles for their research and intervention
Not being an attempt to make a comprehensive description of the patterns and structures of a city,
the next list outlines several of the main properties of complex systems, a more appropriate model to
study the organized complexity problem a city is.

A synthesis of properties of complex systems (CS) (Kay et al. 1999)

Hierarchy. CS are “holarchically nested”. This means that the control exercised by a holon6 (hierarchical
level) always involves reciprocating controls involving other holons. Understanding comes from multi-
ple perspectives of different types and scales.

114 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Internal causality. Self-organizing. Characterized by goals, positive and negative feedback, autocataly-
sis, emergent properties and surprise (v. also Johnson, 2002)

Vitality. CS must have enough complexity but not too much. There is a range in which self-organization
can occur. Complex systems strive for optimum, not minimum or maximum.

Dynamically stable. There may not exist equilibrium points for the CS.

Multiple steady states. There is not necessarily a unique preferred complex system state in a given
situation.

Catastrophic behavior. CS present bifurcations: moments of unpredictable behavior; flips: sudden dis-
continuity and holling four box-cycle: shifting steady state mosaic

Chaotic behavior. Our ability to forecast and predict CS is always limited (weather prediction for
instance).

Principles for research and intervention in complex systems

(McCarthy, 2003)

Critical reflexivity and experimental boundary critique.

This principle advocates a flexible, adaptive or experimental approach to research with an explic-
itly critical (internal and external) edge. In this sense, research becomes an adaptive process of
experimentation with multiple theories and methods that result for (Midgley, 2000) for instance,
in different first (boundaries outside the mind) and second-order (boundaries within the mind)
boundaries. Such a perspective on research makes explicit that there is always an observer or
agent making choices between theories, methods and ultimately boundaries and such choices
are, as a result value-laden, ethical and should be subject to critique.

Enhancing modes of reflexivity and capacity for self-steering.

Throughout the critical process above an autopoietic conception of knowledge generation would
seem to imply that any research or intervention should respect the autonomy of the system of
interest (individual or group) and take the form of an attempt to change the way the target system
thinks about itself and its capacity to change its own action (Luhmann, 1995; Teubner 1988: Stew-
art, 2001).

Pluralism (perspectives and methods).

From a complex systems perspective, it would seem that absolute or exclusionary perspectives
and approaches limit our options for dealing with irreducible complexity and uncertainty. If we
take seriously the autopoietic notion of knowledge generation then objectivity does not seem to
be a useful heuristic and the value of including as many perspectives as possible and utilizing a
plurality of methods seems more tenable than universalism or absolutisms.

Chapter 5: The City as a Network 115

 Context dependence.
Again, taking an autopoietic notion of knowledge and knowledge generation seriously, any prin-
ciples, including the ones presented here, cannot be taken as universal and absolute. These prin-
ciples need to be situated, contextualized or adapted to the system of interest for the purposes
of the research or intervention. This process of adapting the process or set of principles could
be seen to be an integral part of the process of critical reflexivity and experimental boundary
critique. An understanding of a system’s context can be facilitated through the use of some of the
following systems-based heuristics.

Complex systems-based heuristics and understanding

This principle is meant to acknowledge that the use of heuristics7 and properties of complex sys-
tems can provide valuable insights and provide researchers with another set of tools and a corre-
sponding other set of boundaries to explore as they generate the knowledge and understanding
necessary to make an intervention.

Holarchic considerations.
Based on Koestler, 1967, a notion of holarchy which was developed in contrast to hierarchy, whereas
the term hierarchy implies a top-down causal relationship, in that larger, slower systems constrain,
smaller, faster systems, a holarchy of the causal relationship is two-way (top-down and bottom-
up). The activity of smaller, faster systems can concatenate up through the system impacting the
larger systems in the holarchy. Also, tied to this notion is that holarchies are nested, i.e. systems
within systems within systems, etc. Researchers should be aware of their system of interest in the
context of holarchy, that is, how the system of interest interrelates with the systems above and
below, spatially and temporally.

Self-organization.
For researchers, it can be of great benefit to understand their system of interest as well as other
systems in Holarchic relationship with, and / or structurally coupled to it, as self-organization enti-
ties. Such systems can seem to develop out of nothing, seem to maintain themselves in the face
of a variable context and then can appear to degenerate just as quickly as they developed. The
complex systems heuristics tied to the notion of self-organization (attractors, bifurcations, multi-
ple steady-states) can aid in a researcher’s understanding of an ability to effectively intervene in a
complex, self-organizing system without compromising its autonomy while promoting its ability
to self-steer.

Uncertainty.
When viewing phenomena as complex systems it is important to consider that there is some
measure of inherent, irreducible uncertainty associated with complex self-organizing systems. No
matter how fast the computer or sophisticated the model, long term quantitative predictions are
impossible within complex systems. That does not mean, however, that no predictions are possi-
ble. Short term quantitative, within the domain of a given attractor, and qualitative predictions in
the form of narrative descriptions points are possible and highly informative for intervention.

116 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Networks, part of the complexity theory, are emerging as a new model of conceptualizing the world
and seem to be a more adequate approach to study the organized complexity problem a city is.
Networks appear to be pervasive in both nature and human society (Buchanan, 2002). In less than a
decade, a number of scientific discoveries have emerged in relation to this pervasiveness of networks
in different realms of our world (Barabási, Buchanan, Capra, Johnson, Salingaros, Strogatz, Watts, et
al.). This happens a few years after Dupuy and Drewe had suggested the use of networks as a tool for
the research of new spatial planning and design concepts (Dupuy 1991, Drewe 1997) and Castells had
written “The Rise of the Network Society”(1996). Networks provide us with a tool to understand the
city, the organized complexity problem foreseen by Jacobs in 1961.
As we will see afterward, the degree of connection in a network, its connectivity, can be measured
mathematically through graph theory (alpha, beta and gamma indexes) furthermore other objective
systems can be used in the assessment of strategies for connection in a network, like the geographic
information systems.

3 Cities as networks

What kind of network a city is?

The emergence of networks as a field of study has signified the convergence of disciplines. “The study
of networks has exploded across the academic spectrum in the last five years”. Research on networks
has made “substantial progresses…reformulating old ideas, introducing new techniques and uncov-
ering connections between what seemed to be quite different problems…the result has been called
the new science of networks” (Watts, 2004).
Watts and Strogatz (1998) claimed that the structure of a network can have dramatic implications for
the collective dynamics of the system, whose connectivity the network represents. “Large changes in
dynamical behavior could be driven by even subtle modifications to the network structure” (Watts,
2004). Correspondingly, city structures can present large changes in their dynamical behavior, driven
by (sometimes not so subtle) modifications to the network structure and thus, we have to question
what kind of network a city is?
The answer varies accordingly to the structure of the network that the city or part of it has.
While arguing that telecommunications have drastically altered the distribution of pathlengths in
the city, Salingaros (2003) identified three “instances” of network models for the urban web, being
the scale-free network model the most connected at the smallest urban scale. Salingaros analyses
different physical network distributions, using for differentiation the average pathlength in the net-
work, which is a measure of separation. A high figure as the average pathlength can be correlated
with sprawl; a low figure can be correlated with compactness in the city. Salingaros first instance,
“the modernist city, allows only a minimal number of longest-length connections, and no others. Its
distribution of pathlengths is peaked at some multiple of the city’s size…it is heavily biased towards
the longest paths…” (Salingaros, 2003). The average pathlength in the modernist city network is high,
“and therefore the addition of telecommunications partially satisfies a fundamental need for physical
short-range connections”. The second instance, “the Erdös-Rényi model for a randomly-connected
city gives a correct lower figure for the optimum path density, but an unrealistic average length...
because of the size of the contemporary car city, this distribution represents car connectivity, thus
under-representing all of the pedestrian connections” (Salingaros, 2003). And the third instance, a
more adequate network structure of the city is “a scale-free city that obeys an inverse-power distribu-
tion. It has the majority of its connections on the smallest scales, so the shortest paths predominate.

Chapter 5: The City as a Network 117

 This average pathlength is shorter by orders of magnitude compared to the other two models. One
could in theory (and in practice) continue to shorter (and more numerous) pathlengths” (Salingaros,
2003).
Scale-free networks are present in urban structures that having evolved through millennia have a
large number of connections at the smallest scale, strongly linked with connections at other scales,
in a fractal order. We have stated that the strongest connections happen at the smallest urban inter-
faces, i.e. the interfaces for the pedestrian interaction with the city, and this interaction can be for
mobility and / or information. This is the interface in which our research is focused, the interface for
the pedestrian interaction with space, with information and with other systems’ networks (like the car
system). Perhaps biased to kinetics by the futuristic-modernistic-pragmatic, or “progressive” vision of
the city, there is a dominating conceptual model to see connections in its fabric mostly as longitudi-
nal. However the shortest pathlengths in the city network (the urban web) correspond by definition,
to transversal paths: across the networked space of the urban web. Every longitudinal connection in
the urban web requires lesser-scale set of (more numerous) transversal connections. If the spatial and
communication conditions of the web, what we have called the roadspace allow it, the number of
shortest paths in a network will be maximized.

Scale-free networks and power-law distribution

Watts, 2004

A separate development in the recent literature on networks has been the growing realization that
in many real-world networks, the distribution of the number of network neighbors—the degree
distribution—is typically right-skewed with a “heavy tail,” meaning that a majority of nodes have
less-than-average degree and that a small fraction of hubs are many times better connected than
average. This qualitative description can be satisfied by several mathematical functions, but a par-
ticularly popular one in the current literature is a power law (Barabási & Albert 1999), which has
the asymptotic form

P(K ≥ k) ~ k−α p(k) ~ k−α. 2.

Illustration 65. (a) Power law with exponent a, when plotted on a double-logarithmic scale, appears
as a straight line with negative slope a. (b) A normal-type distribution (i.e., with finite mean and vari-
ance) plotted on a double-logaritmic scale displays a well-defined cutoff, above which probabilities
are effectively zero

118 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 In other words, the probability of a randomly chosen node having degree k decays like a power of
k, where the exponent α, typically measured in the range 2 < α < 3, determines the rate of decay
(smaller α implies slower decay, hence a more skewed distribution). A distinguishing feature of
power-law distributions is that when plotted on a double logarithmic scale, a power law appears
as a straight line with negative slope α. As displayed schematically in Figure 3a, the straight line
form of a power law contrasts with a normal distribution (Figure 3b), which curves sharply on a
log-log plot, such that the probability of a node having a degree greater than a certain “cutoff”
value is effectively zero. A cutoff therefore implies a characteristic scale for the degree distribu-
tion of the network, and because a power-law degree distribution lacks any such cutoff value, it is
often called a scale-free distribution

Watts, Duncan J (2004) The “New” Science of Networks, in Annual Review of Sociology, 2004.
30:243–70

Social networks, the pattern of a network structure

Cities are complex systems, structured by principles of organized complexity and networks are an ade-
quate conceptual model to study them. Fritjof Capra (2002) has further studied and defined the human
organizational networks, which are an even more suitable model to study the city: “social networks”.
Capra argues that a social network is a nonlinear pattern of organization explainable by concepts
developed in complexity theory, such as feedback or emergence, which is relevant in a social context
as well (2002, p82). Regarding this pattern of organization, Salingaros has recurrently provided (1998,
2000, 2001 and 2003) the notion that the spatial network in a city and its connections are intimately
related to networks of communication, a concept also supported by Capra and others (Jacobs, 1961;
Johnson, 2002):
“The central focus of a systemic analysis is their “pattern of organization”. Living systems are self-gen-
erating networks, which means that their pattern of organization is a network pattern in which each
component contributes to the production of other components. This idea can be extended to the
social domain by identifying the relevant living networks as networks of communications” (Capra,
2002 p91). This supports the conceptual model in which the city’s structure (spatial components) is
intricately connected with the patterns of organization and communication of its users.

Considering the city as a social structure implies that its construction process is not only “emergent”:
“The production of material structures in social networks is quite different from that in biological and
ecological networks. The structures are created for a purpose, according to some design, and they
embody some meaning. To understand the activities of social systems, it is crucial to study them from
that perspective” (Capra, 2002, p.84). This means that social networks are constructed by a balanced
combination of emergent, bottom-up and purposeful top-down processes.

The concept of social network can also aid in modeling the city’s patterns of organization and its rela-
tionship with power exertion.
“A social network continually generates mental images, thoughts and meaning; on the other hand, it
continually coordinates the behavior of its members…culture arises from a complex, highly non-linear
dynamic. It is created by a social network involving multiple feedback loops through which values,
beliefs and rules of conduct are continually communicated, modified and sustained. It emerges from
a network of communications among individuals; and as it emerges, it produces constraints on their
actions; power plays a central role in the emergence of social structures” (Capra, 2002: pp 86 – 90).

Chapter 5: The City as a Network 119

 4 Principles of the Urban Web
There is a fundamental consideration to make in this thesis. It adopts the approach to the study and
understanding of the phenomenon of the city as a network, as an urban web, through the emerging
scientific paradigm of networks. Connections and networks are deeply interrelated.
Nikos Salingaros’ Theory of the Urban Web explains the urban phenomenon through three basic prin-
ciples: nodes, connections and hierarchy; the three basic principles of a network: the elements (nodes)
the relationships between elements (connections or links) and hierarchy (the order that organizes the
network). Next, there is a transcription of the three principles (framed) and comments on their appli-
cation on the thesis. The principles and the comments around them are further elaborated in a set of
rules for geometric coherence that can be found in the next section of this chapter.

Principles of the Urban Web (Salingaros, 1998)

Nodes
The urban web is anchored at nodes of human activity whose interconnections make up the web.
There exist distinct types of nodes: home, work, park, store, restaurant, church, etc. Natural and
architectural elements serve to reinforce human activity nodes and their connective paths. The
web determines the spacing and plan of buildings, not vice-versa. Nodes that are too far apart
cannot be connected by a pedestrian path. Multiple connections are established between com-
plementary nodes, and then amalgamated into paths that also connect like nodes (Salingaros,
1998).

Nodes in a network are the abstraction of the elements that constitute a system. In this thesis, the
network is the city and the elements that constitute it can be of a very large variety. The concept of
an urban network evolves here from the early notion of a network for conduction (people, commodi-
ties, information) to a notion of an abstraction of a system that may or may not “conduct”. Nodes in an
urban network can be then any element in the city or a combination of them in relation to others, and
may I enhance the words in relation because networks deal mainly with that, relationships between
the elements of a complex system. Thus, nodes in an urban network can be people; can be places,
services, or other elements. In this thesis, we follow the first Salingaros’ principle: nodes are focus of
human activities.
For the observation and assessment (empirical) part of this thesis, we have grouped the two main
kinds of human activities nodes: domestic nodes - the households, and non-domestic or social nodes,
all the non-domestic activity nodes. As we will see below, the relationship between domestic and
social nodes generates a given attraction by “polarity”, that in electricity is the quality of having two
poles with opposed charges, one positive and the other negative.
Salingaros has also found out that without a sufficient density and variety of nodes, functional paths
(as opposed to unused ones that are purely decorative) can never form, so the concept of node-density
is also crucial in this thesis and is useful for the understanding of the ratio of human activity elements
(points or nodes) in a given area of the city.

120 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Connections
Everything has to do with connections and the topology of those connections.
Pairwise connections form between complementary nodes, not like nodes. Pedestrian paths con-
sist of short straight pieces between nodes; no section should exceed a certain maximum length.
To accommodate multiple connections between two points, some paths must necessarily be
curved or irregular. Too many connections that coincide overload the channel’s capacity. Success-
ful paths are defined by the edge between contrasting planar regions, and form along boundaries
(Salingaros, 1998).

This second principle establishes that there is an attraction force needed to make connections between
the elements of a network, this force exists between pairwise nodes. Pairwise here means nodes of
different polarity (polarity is further explained in the rule of “couplings”, below) by differentiation of
activities. We take into account for the empirical part of the research, the nodal densities of the two
main poles of human activity, the domestic and the social.
“Let us proceed to connect all the different elements in an urban situation. We try to achieve maximum
organization by making adjustments to the components: moving them around, and modifying them
so that nodes and architectural elements connect to each other at a distance. The goal is always to
establish connections The number of connections between human activity nodes is (or should be)
incredibly large” (Salingaros, 1998).

Hierarchy
When allowed to do so, the urban web self-organizes by creating an ordered hierarchy of con-
nections on several different levels of scale. It becomes multiply connected but not chaotic. The
organization process follows a strict order: starting from the smallest scales (footpaths), and pro-
gressing up to the higher scales (roads of increasing capacity). If any connective level is missing,
the web is pathological. A hierarchy can rarely be established all at once (Salingaros 1998).

A hierarchy (in Greek hieros, sacred, and arkho, rule) is a system of ranking and organizing things. In
our research, we have changed the term hierarchic for holarchic, that may be a more adequate term,
because the association that hierachic has with a top-down flow of order. The holarchic order comes
from both top-down and bottom-up directions.
Another comment on this principle is that in the urban web, the order is connected in different levels
of scale. Also following this principle, in chapter 3 we have already mentioned how this holarchic order
is connected between scales and as a common feature of complex systems is most important in the
smallest (urban) scale, the pedestrian scale. We also have to say that the holarchic order is established
over time and thus, we cannot expect to fabricate it but to help generating it. More and more strong
connections between nodes of the urban web are sought out in this thesis in different levels of scale,
by interventions in the urban space, urban projects or intermediate catalysts.
“Connections between smaller and larger elements, or between internal sub-elements of distinct
modules, are weaker. Repeated similar units do not connect: coupling works either by contrasting
qualities, or via an intermediate catalyst. Elements are therefore necessary, not only for their own pri-
mary function, but also for their secondary role in linking other elements that cannot couple directly
by themselves” (Salingaros, 2000).

Chapter 5: The City as a Network 121

 5 Complex networks’ rules of coherence
The principles of the urban web derive in a set of rules that in many cases are alike those rules that
operate in a complex system and that give coherence to the system. Salingaros has found out that in
the city as in the cases of organisms and software there are “rules of assembly” which through the parts
“cooperate” to the well-functioning of the whole:
“There is little formal difference between such systems and the urban fabric (Lozano, 1990). A few
structural rules have evolved in the study of complex systems. Initially stated by Herbert Simon for
economics (Simon, 1962; Simon and Ando, 1961), some were re-invented in the context of computer
programming (Booch, 1991; Courtois, 1985; Pree, 1995). Others appeared independently in engineer-
ing and biology (Mesarovic, Macko et al., 1970; Miller, 1978; Passioura, 1979). Of the many different pos-
sible statements of system rules, the following list is critically relevant to urban design”:

• Rule 1. COUPLINGS: Strongly-coupled elements on the same scale form a module. There should
be no unconnected elements inside a module.

“Urban couplings begin on the smallest possible scale, and are needed to bind contrasting or comple-
mentary components together into one unit. Possible examples of complementary pairs include: foot-
path with boundary wall; parking place with a piece of pedestrian canopy; wall with tree; bricks with
mortar; paving stones of contrasting colors; entry-way with arcade; column with roof; local street with
parking spaces; curb with bollards; etc. Whether such couplings work or not depends on a multitude of
factors. The test of the degree to which two elements couple, relies on judgments made by the human
mind, which, after all, is the most sophisticated known computer. The older, humanistic approach to
design looked for such harmonies between components, and gave them priority over streamlining”
(Salingaros, 2000).

• Rule 2. DIVERSITY: Similar elements do not couple. A critical diversity of different elements is
needed because some will catalyze couplings between others.

For empirical observation and assessment of connectivity, we would designate a sign to nodes accord-
ing to their kind; domestic nodes would have a negative sign (consumer nodes, in economic terms;
subtractive nodes in social terms) and social nodes a positive sign (producer nodes in terms of econ-
omy; additive nodes in social terms).
In a way, polarity comes from the coupling rule and it means that nodes of the same sign are repelled;
nodes of different sign are attracted to each other.

• Rule 3. BOUNDARIES: Different modules couple via their boundary elements. Connections form
between modules, and not between their internal elements.

Boundaries are the skin of the body of elements and it is through the skin that bodies interchange
material and information. This happens from the scale of a cell, a tissue, an organ, a system, etc. The
interchange of materials and information depends on the permeability of the boundary (skin) of the
element. This concept of boundary is also of crucial importance in the empirical part of the thesis.

122 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

By looking at permeability as a variable, we can observe and assess the potential that elements in an
urban network have to connect to other elements in a given space. The permeability of an urban space
determines, connected to other variables, the connectivity that such urban space can hold.

• Rule 4. FORCES: Interactions are naturally strongest on the smallest scale, and weakest on the
largest scale. Reversing them generates pathologies.

This is the rule that determines the other variable relevant to assess potential connectivity in an urban
space. The interactions or connections are strongest in the smallest scales and this has to do with capil-
larity in a network, a concept also supported by Salingaros. The capilar flow is of maximum strength
and of minimum size in a complex system. In the urban web, the capilar flow corresponds to the small-
est urban scale, the pedestrian or interpersonal scale, where a maximum of interactions occur. The
notion of capillarity is associated in the empirical observations and assessments presented in chapter
8 with what we have called transversal accessibility, very much in the sense of transversal connectivity
explained in chapter 3.

While these first four rules for geometrical coherence have a direct relationship with the empirical
part of this thesis, the last four rules do have an indirect one and we will now make comments on such
relationships:

• Rule 5. ORGANIZATION: Long-range forces create the large scale from well-defined structure
on the smaller scales. Alignment does not establish, but can destroy short-range couplings.

This rule is indirectly related to the particular study in this thesis of the fragmentation by overimposi-
tion of infrastructure, that breaks the “organization” of the system, the urban tissue in our case.

• Rule 6. HIERARCHY: A system’s components assemble progressively from small to large. This
process generates linked units defined on many distinct scales.

As we have seen in these last three chapters, the connection of scales of the elements is of vital impor-
tance to a complex system:
“The smaller scales need to be defined before the larger scales: their elements must couple in a stable
manner before the higher-order modules can even begin to form and interact. Elements on the small-
est scale, along with their couplings, thus provide the foundations for the entire structure. Requiring a
hierarchy of nested scales means that not even one scale can be missing, otherwise the whole system
is unstable” (Salingaros 2000).

• Rule 7. INTERDEPENDENCE: Elements and modules on different scales do not depend on each
other in a symmetric manner: a higher scale requires all lower scales, but not vice versa.

Chapter 5: The City as a Network 123

 This rule is about the possibility of emergence. Emergence is a feature of living, complex systems, as
cities are (Jacobs, Alexander, Johnson, Salingaros, Capra, et al.). If the structures in a system do not
allow interdependence, emergence cannot occur and life fails to exist. The modernistic city has a lack
of life because in its structure emergence does not exist due to the lack of interdependence or interac-
tivity in the smallest scale, the pedestrian scale.

• Rule 8. DECOMPOSITION: A coherent system cannot be completely decomposed into constitu-

ent parts. There exist much non-equivalent decomposition based on different types of units.

Once again, this rule confirms that simple analysis (the Cartesian approach) is not an appropriate way
to observe the city. There are some kinds of properties, such as life, that complex systems have and
that cannot be explained by decomposing the parts of it. Complex systems are to be understood in a
holistic or integrative manner. Networks can provide a tool to advance in this understanding.

6 Network concepts for observation and assessment

This section is directly connected to chapter 8, evaluation that is the empirical observation and assess-
ment part of this thesis. As a corollary of this theoretical part, comprise by chapters 2 to 5 and to finish
with this chapter on “the city as a network”, a set of variables have been defined supported directly by
Salingaros’ first four “rules for geometrical coherence”. In the process of construction of the empirical
experiment (detailed on chapter 8) devised to observe and assess connectivity in the urban space,
there has been a long process of observation of the city’s aspects and a reflection to connect these
observations and the explanations and predictions presented in this theoretical part. This section is a
synthesis of the reflections made to connect observation with theory and it proposes a series of con-
cepts for specifically observing and assessing connectivity in the urban space.

A series of variables has been defined for the observation of connectivity in urban space. Here we
present a synthesis of the reflections made in our research to connect the theory with observation (first
component of the empirical part of science). We present some partial results of the observations made
in the city of Querétaro that has served as a laboratory, of the interaction of the variables derived from
the first four rules of coherence of a complex system.

Interaction scheme
In Illustration 66, we present a diagram of the studied interactions: On one side we study the interac-
tion between the density of domestic nodes and the density of social nodes. From the interaction
of these two, potential polarity results in a given urban space. On the other side, we study the urban
space form its visual permeability and its capillarity or transversal accessibility. The interaction between
these last two, plus the potential polarity, results in the transversal connectivity of urban space, this is
the potential that the space has to connect the elements on study. In the case of our research, the study
of connectivity is made in the smallest urban scale, the scale of the pedestrian.

Network mapping
We have to point out that powerful tools for observation and assessment of the urban phenomena as
the geographical information systems (GIS) are used in our research in an intent to map networks that

124 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

exist in the urban space. It is a form of representation, an abstraction of the phenomena understood
through the network paradigm and the “new” science that develops around them. The images pre-
sented here, are advances in our research in the part of observation, the start of the empirical phase
and should be taken as maps of urban networks in a topological sense, more than in a strict geographi-
cal sense, understanding the topology of networks as a qualitative description of the relationships that
happen within them.

Area of study
An area of study (Illustration 67) was defined in the northern border of the first ring of the city of Queré-
taro, the Arco Norte Area, which is further analyzed in chapter 6. We worked in a frame in the scale of
the 300m. This area of the city was designated in the 60s for industrial uses that have been changing
recently to residential and commercial isolated uses (gated communities, supermarkets with the car
park at the front and commercial malls)
This area was selected for its low gross density and the fragmentation that the urban space presents,
but also for the potential of making interventions in it by urban projects to reconnect and redensify it.
In our opinion, there is a number of other Latin-American cities with areas similar to the zone studied
here.

Illustration 66. Diagram of the studied

variables’ interaction. Diagram by Ernesto
Philibert Petit

Illustration 67. Area of study. INEGI,

Mexico.

Chapter 5: The City as a Network 125

 Nodal density
As we explained before, we have considered two basic types of nodes: the domestic, that correspond
to the households and the social, that correspond to the rest of human activities performed in a city. It
is important to note that for connectivity to exist, it is necessary a given critical mass of nodes of both
types in a given area. This ratio corresponds to the quantity of nodes of a type that exist in a given
zone.
The variety of domestic and social nodes is in function of the size of the city and of its connectedness
with other networks. This way, we have established two distinct nodal densities in the area of study,
the domestic nodal density and the social nodal density.
The map of density of domestic nodes can be observed in figure 5.4 in which density is expressed from
lower to higher through a gamut of blue hue, from light to dark; locating the domestic nodes (house-
holds) according to the registered plot of the municipal cadastre and the gross densities by neighbor-
hood established by the 2000 census made by the government.

In illustration 68 the background of the urban space has been colored in red, this is streets, squares, etc.
to make evident their transversal connectivity afterwards.

In illustration 69, the social nodal density is mapped together with the urban space (in white) with a
distinction of qualities in the social nodes, be it public, semi-public or semi-private.
The public space is part of the network of social nodes and the social nodes can be, depending on their
scale, a bench in a park, a square in a park, the park itself, etc.

In Nolli´s plan (Ill. 70) the square in front of the Pantheon (numbered 834) is a public social node, the
same as the fountain and the borders of the fountain in other scales.
The semi-public social nodes are those spaces that only one part of the public participates of; generally
they are patios or interiors of public buildings. In Nolli´s plan, the patio of the Palazzo Doria-Pamphilii
(853), the interiors of the Pantheon (837) and of Santa Maria sopra Minerva (844) are semipublic social
nodes.
The semi-private social nodes are points in the urban space in which there is a restricted access. These
nodes can be offices, production centers and services as restaurants, theatres and schools.
According to the classification proposed, it is noteworthy that in figure 69 no public social nodes are
found. The lack of public social nodes is a recurrent symptom in the urban space of the contemporary
city.

Potential polarity
From the interaction of rules for coherence of complex systems numbers 1 (couplings) and 2(diversity),
the concept of potential polarity is a result, which is the relationship between the density of domestic
nodes and the density of social nodes.

In an urban space in which there is only one type of node, as it is normal to happen in the mono-
functional planning schemes, polarity will be null or almost null. For a given polarity to exist there is
a number of nodes of both types that must exist in a given area. Polarity or the differentiation of two
poles originates connectivity in a network, so this is a fundamental variable.
Illustration 71 shows zoned potential polarity in the areas that the nodes have been located. This figure
corresponds to the zonal paradigm, so we searched for new graphic concepts as the interaction of
variables that is not evident in an image as Illustration 71. In this direction, we have programmed the

126 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Illustration 68. Domestic node density (in
blue) and roadspace (in red) ). Cartogram
by Fernando Tovar Zamora-Plowes

Illustration 69. Social node density). Car-

togram by Fernando Tovar Zamora-Plowes

Illustration 70. Nolli’s Rome Plan (frag-

ment). University of California at Berkeley.

Chapter 5: The City as a Network 127

 GIS to calculate the interpolation of variables and to display these interpolations in a graphic with
color gradients to make a map of the interactions or the potential relationships between domestic and
social nodes. We have called this potential interaction networked potential polarity that is shown here
in Illustration 72. In this figure, it is interesting to note the surge of “centers” of interactivity that are
emphasized by color and shadow. The zones in which there is potentially more complexity and thus
present better conditions for

connectivity are displayed as “bubbles” that correspond to the formation of modules that belong to a
larger scale than the scale their constitutive elements have. The spaces of low complexity or ‘simple’
appear in this figure as “holes” in a network, this is as areas of the net that present low or null potential
of connection or connectivity; these areas appear as “islands”. These islands are disconnected spaces
or disconnected networks from the studied network.

Capillarity or transversal accessibility

We have called so the potential that exists in an urban space of connecting with the smaller scales, this
is, in a street or urban space, the potential that exists of having mobility connections in the transversal
direction. Let us remember that the networks in complex systems are connected in all of their scales
and in the urban space, the smallest urban scale is the pedestrian scale. In the urban space, connections
have normally been studied between nodes of the same or towards a larger scale, connections that we
have called longitudinal. Transversal connections go on the other direction. Transversal connections
at the pedestrian scale are maximum in an urban space that is exclusively pedestrian that presents
optimum conditions of accessibility and that do not present heavy or medium vehicular traffic at high
speed. In our geographical information system, we have designated values of capillarity or transversal
accessibility to the urban space according to its conditions. We have designated a value of “transpar-
ency” in the graphic to all of the spaces with maximum capillarity, so the system can register them as
transparent so they allow the visualization of the interactions of connectivity. In the measure that the
urban spaces are less “capilar”, the value of transparency diminishes and in the graphic the black color
is appears in dotted screens in coefficients that vary by 0.20 until reaching the total saturation of color
that corresponds to the urban spaces with zero capillarity as the urban motorways are. Urban spaces
as wide avenues and with intense traffic at high or medium speed that present a low capillarity are
displayed with a high coefficient of black (0.6 or 0.8); spaces with a light traffic of low speed correspond
to high capillarity and are displayed with a low coefficient of black (0.2 or 0.4). This capillarity or trans-
versal accessibility denotes urban “islands” for the pedestrian in the zone studied.

Visual permeability
Optimum connectivity in the pedestrian scale not only depends on accessibility. It has been demon-
strated that urban spaces function as well as interfaces of information and the information that can be
captured in an urban space depends on the visual permeability that its boundaries present. In a street
with both boundaries closed by a wall, as in many cases in the contemporary city, visual permeability
is null. Successful urban spaces with a high quantity and quality of information are visually permeable
spaces, which allow visual penetration through the boundary. This is the case of pedestrian streets
with high vitality in the historic centers of cities or even in the inner pedestrian streets of the contem-
porary ‘malls’ where multiple experiences of visual interchange happen, where thus, connectivity is
favored.
For the effects of our research, we have designated values of permeability to the urban spaces depend-
ing on the information that their boundaries can contain. In the case of closed walls, the value is mini-

128 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Illustration 71. Zoned potential polarity.
Cartogram by Fernando Tovar Zamora-
Plowes

Illustration 72. Networked potential polar-

ity. Cartogram by Fernando Tovar Zamora-
Plowes

Illustration 73. Zoned transversal con-

nectivity. Cartogram by Fernando Tovar
Zamora-Plowes

Illustration 73a. Networked transversal

connectivity. Cartogram by Fernando Tovar
Zamora-Plowes

Chapter 5: The City as a Network 129

 mum or null, with five gradients up to the value for maximum visual permeability that exists in the
spaces with boundaries but with a rich visual connection.

Transversal connectivity
Finally, the concept of transversal connectivity in the urban space can be defined as the capacity of a
given space to allow connections in the scale of the pedestrian. It is integrated by the concurrence of
the three last variables: potential polarity, capillarity and visual permeability.

The (zonal) geographic location of this interaction in the GIS is graphically expressed in Illustration 73
in which we can do the critique of the lack of expression of complex interactions that an urban network
has, and more in this case where there is a concurrence of many variables. The difference with figure
73a is noteworthy. In figure 73a, we have programmed the GIS to make the mathematical interpola-
tions between the variables and the generation of potential centers of complexity is observed as in
figure 5.8 but now conditioned to the features of capillarity and visual permeability that the urban
space may or may not have.

In Illustration 73a it can be observed how the urban space of low permeability and capillarity can
inhibit connectivity at the pedestrian scale, as in the case of the large surfaces of car parks in the com-
mercial ‘malls’ or simply in the case of the roads with high traffic, that represent unaffordable barriers
for the capacity of connection of the urban space.
Low permeability or null-permeability boundaries as in the case of the closed wall of the lot of the fac-
tory in the center-south of our study area, cause the formation of urban islands that in figure 73a can
be observed. The same happens with the closed boundaries of gated communities (to the right-south
and center-north of the area of study). These impermeable boundaries notably inhibit the connectivity
and this is made evident in figure 73a.
In ulterior phases of the empirical research (see chapter 9) the graphic interface of the system here
presented will be used not only for observation but also for evaluation of the potential conditions of
connectivity when making interventions in the area of study by means of a network of urban projects
aiming to improve it. Expected results are to be able to develop a tool of spatial design that permits
facing the challenge of organizing complexity, understanding it not as trying to “design” it but to
design the conditions to allow it to emerge. Thus, it is expected that a tool for the assessment of con-
ditions for connectivity produces information to design new conditions that may improve the funda-
mental connections between persons in the urban space.

7 Conclusions
A number of variables established by modern urbanism that correspond to the ‘zonal’ approach to the
city study, such as density and land use, are being de facto modified by the emerging network para-
digm and might be soon modified de jure in the planning legal framework.
Zonal urbanism has considered density as a static factor when reality has proven that densities in the
contemporary city are variable while related to time. The large monofunctional housing zones present
different densities depending on the time of the day and the day of the week. In the network para-
digm, densities might be taken in account but always in relation to other variables (time for instance)
and again, as a set of variables, as a dynamic system, to study the city.

130 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

With the emergence of the network as a paradigm, the scientific study of the city has now to produce
new tools for observation and assessment of the organized complexity phenomenon. Without dis-
qualifying the tools that have been used in the past, but pondering their reaches, now new tools and
methods have to be developed to match the theoretical advancements of the “new” science of net-
works. As Kuhn has stated, moving from one paradigm to another always causes frictions but we are
fortunate to live in a time in which a major change in the paradigms of the science of the form-giving
of the urban space is happening; the change will certainly bring new challenges and opportunities.
We have to point out again that the graphic interface of the GIS used in this research is a tool to observe
connectivity and in a way, give it form, as in the case of the images used in medical science to observe
the conditions of a complex system. A graphic interface that expresses connectivity can be a useful
tool for taking decisions in specific urban projects oriented to improve it. Of course, connectivity has
been studied here as of mobility and information in the urban space and as a preliminary conclusion,
other spatial and non-spatial variables can be observed and assessed in the city through a graphic
interface within principles and rules of complex systems.
Another conclusion that can be drawn out in the present chapter is that what in the zonal paradigm was
considered periphery, in the new network paradigm can be considered as a “hole”, for its disconnec-
tion from a given system. The graphic interface allows visualizing the disconnection that was formerly
associated to geographical peripheries but that now seem to have no corresponding conditions.
Through the study of networks and with tools as the Geographic Information Systems, the conditions
for connectivity can be observed and assessed, recognizing that they take place in the environment of
organized complexity that a city is.

Chapter 5: The City as a Network 131

 Endnotes
1. Applied to processes that have random characteristics
2. Nominalism is the position in metaphysics that there exist no universals outside of the mind
3. The opposite of stochastic, i.e. known and certain
4. This is, that attempts to quantify the notion of probable
5. Which by the way, has been broken by the modernist city.
6. A system that can be viewed at the same time as part of a larger system or as a group of smaller sys-
tems. For example, an organization is a holon, because it is made of of smaller systems (eg people)
but also part of a larger system (eg the community where it is based).
7. Heuristic is the art and science of discovery and invention. The word comes from the same Greek
root as “eureka”: which means “I find”. A heuristic is a way of directing your attention fruitfully.

132 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

6 Querétaro

Analysis

1. Introduction to the empirical setting

Santiago de Querétaro, the urban setting for the empirical research of this thesis is at the same time a
typical and a peculiar mid-sized city of Mexico and Latin America.
The largest sector of the urban population in Latin America lives in what today are mid-sized cities like
Querétaro. These cities are expected to grow, in general, a 60% in the next 25 years. Querétaro how-
ever, is expected to at least duplicate its one-million population in the same period, due to its strategic
position in the NAFTA communication network and close to Mexico City and at the same time, part of
the Mexico City megalopolis. In this chapter we present a brief set of data and make an analysis of the
metropolitan area of Querétaro as a node, from the scope of networks.
Being fragmentation the central problem statement studied in this thesis, we present an analysis of
the fragmentation of the city of Querétaro, first in general and then by studying eight strategic areas
of the city that are thought to have a high potential for placing urban projects, specifically oriented
to connect the city in a holistic sense. We present to the reader a brief history of urban planning in
Querétaro, as a reference frame to ponder the analysis. We also include here a study made in 2004 by
the author about the economic features of sprawl in Querétaro, regarding its economic viability. The
conclusion of the chapter gives way to specific connectivity oriented urban project-proposals to be
boarded on chapter 7.

Santiago de Querétaro
Data for the Metropolitan Querétaro Area1

Metropolitan Area (2000):

Urbanized surface 13,898 Hectares

Population data:
(2000 Census): 787,341 inhabitants
(2004 Estimated) 961,208 inhabitants
Born in metro area 68%
Born elsewhere 32%
Men 48%
Women 52%
Older than 18 years 59%
Economically active 38%
Average years of schooling 9
Average number of children per woman 2.22

Chapter 6: Querétaro 133

 Rate of population increase:
From 1980 to 2000 Querétaro’s population has almost quadrupled owing to an explosion of indus-
trial growth, the proximity of Mexico City and domestic migratory flows caused by social and
economic phenomena.

Historic population, Querétaro Metropolitan Zone

Year Population % Increase
1950 49,440 -
1960 67,674 36.88%
1970 112,993 66.96%
1980 215,976 91.14%
1990 555,491 157.2%
2000 787,341 41.73%
Source: Garza, Gustavo (2003) Urbanization in 20th Century Mexico. El Colegio de México.

Gross density (2000): 56.65 inhabitants per hectare.

Housing units (2000):

Occupied units: 171,574
Units without drainage 10%
Units built with nonstandard,
makeshift materials 10%
Units with no services 1%
Units with drinking water 92%
Units with radio 90%
Units with TV 93%
Units with telephone 50%
Units with car 44%
Units with computer 20%
Units with all goods and services
described above 14%
Residents per unit (average) 4.6
Economically active population (EAP): 299,190 inhabitants (38% of total)

Distribution of EAP:
Primary sector: 5% (agriculture, livestock raising, hunting and fishing)
Secondary sector: 35% (industry)
Tertiary sector: 60% (business and services)

Income
(1 minimum monthly salary, MMS, = $121.18 USD)

Income of < 1 MMS: 51,177 (6.5%)

Income of 1-2 MMS: 230,690 (29.3%)
Income of 2-5 MMS: 285,017 (36.2%)
Income of > 5 MMS: 123,612 (15.7%)

134 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

2 Santiago de Querétaro as a Node.
Santiago de Querétaro, the metropolitan area formed by the urbanized territories of the municipalities
of Querétaro, El Marqués, Corregidora and Huimilpan, is located on Mexico’s “high plateau,” a region
in the center of the country with an average altitude of about 1,800 meters above sea level, in a region
with a semi-arid climate, with hot summers and a temperate winter. With an estimated 1 million inhab-
itants in 2005 (0.8 million in 20002 ), Santiago de Querétaro forms part of the megalopolis of Mexico
City (18 million) as one of the five “satellite” cities orbiting around it, along with the also metropolitan
areas of Toluca (1.4 million), Cuernavaca (0.7 million), Puebla (1.9 million) and Pachuca (0.3 million). The
Mexico City megalopolis had an estimated 25 million inhabitants in 2000, and is expected to grow an
additional 60% for a total of nearly 40 million by 2050.

Querétaro’s earliest urban grid has a peculiarity: it has no straight streets. This raises questions regard-
ing the origin of its trace, which many people think Spaniard and may rather be indigenous. The urban
and architectural value of the historic center was validated some years ago when it was declared a
World Heritage Site by the UNESCO.

More than intrinsic economic or social features of the city, Querétaro has historically had a reason for its
importance: its position as a node in a network, especially as an articulation node in relation to Mexico
City and to strategic production nodes elsewhere in the North of the country.

Querétaro was founded in 1531 by the Spanish conquistadores as a frontier outpost almost exclusively
to gather (and control) otomí and chichimeca indigenous population, a pueblo de indios. However this
condition changed radically after 1551 with the discoveries of abundant gold and silver in the mines of
Zacatecas (to the North) and Guanajuato (to the West). Immediately Querétaro became the articulation
node in the confluence of the camino real (royal road) connecting Mexico City with those two miner
towns. With the rich produce of the mines of Zacatecas and Guanajuato, of which it is said (Dussel)
that was the origin of a good part of the capital assets of Spain (and, through piracy, Britain too) and
later of the capitalist Europe, the pueblo de indios was elevated in rank by the Spanish crown in the
17th century to most noble and loyal city. Of course, the original population composition of the new
noble city changed from almost wholly indigenous to almost wholly Creole and Spanish population,
attracted by the new opportunities of the strategic position of the city in relation with the then wealthy
mining structure.
The exploitation of the mines lasted the whole 17th and 18th centuries. Querétaro had then the chance
to develop a local economy based on primary activities with some textile industry. Commerce was
developed as well as a vocational economic activity in Querétaro, due to its strategic position as a
node. Important urban projects like the famous aqueduct were built in this period. Churches and con-
vents and monasteries flourished in the city that became a center to prepare the evangelization of the
northern territories. The launching of the construction of the famous misiones lead by father Junípero
Serra started in Querétaro and reached out far territories, up to northern California.
The mines’ exhaustion in the late 18th century probably was, in my opinion, one of the main indirect
causes of the Mexican independence from Spain in the early 19th. More than the political dominance
of Napoleon’s regime in Europe that also included Spain, or the alleged influence of the French revolu-
tion and the American independence to encourage the Creole insurgency, Spain lost economic inter-
est in its colony when the mines were no longer productive. This situation affected of course the local
economy of Querétaro that was left without its most important asset, the strategic position regarding
the mining exploitation. A proof of this impasse is that the population of the city at the end of the 18th

Chapter 6: Querétaro 135

 century was estimated in 50,000 a cipher that would be more or less maintained for up to 150 years,
when the 1950s brought again expansion to the city.
Meanwhile, the 19th century in Mexico was dominated by war, either with foreign countries (the
expanding United States, or France, Spain and even Britain) or civil war between the liberal and con-
servative, corresponding to the republican and the imperialist in the times of the “empire” of Maxi-
milian, a historic episode that ended precisely in Querétaro. The imperialist troops occupied the city
because of its strategic position, since the republican enemy was scattered in the vast territory of
northern Mexico. This episode ended with the shooting of the “emperor” by his republican enemies in
1867 in Querétaro. The triumph of the “republic” in the Reforma movement changed thoroughly the
face of the city: “Temples and convents were expropriated, religious communities decloistered, walls
in the atriums and some other religious spaces torn down and the spaces subdivided and put up for
public sale, orchards and atriums divided into lots” (Arvizu, 2004).
There was a period of relative calm in the late 19th century in Mexico with the dictatorship of Porfirio
Díaz (1880 – 1910); and accordingly, the number of inhabitants and the urban area remained stable.
The 20th century entered in Mexico with the revolution that started in 1910 “for the sake of democ-
racy”. After seven years of armed conflict, a new constitution was promulgated in Querétaro in 1917.
This event, by the way, did not mean the ending of the armed conflicts that lasted up to well into the
20s and can be said to be finished in the 30s with the government of general Lázaro Cárdenas. It is said
that the historic center of Querétaro, now a World Heritage site was relatively well conserved because
the long-lasting lack of capital in the city in all these years. Political imbalance can be said to be finished
up to the 1950s with the government of Miguel Alemán, the first civilian president after the revolution.
These 150 years of turmoil and wars explain why the population and the urban area did not grow for
a century and a half.
Besides being a civilian, President Miguel Alemán was an entrepreneur. As other political and economic
forces did in the past, he took advantage of Querétaro’s strategic position and ordered a super-high-
way to be built between Mexico City and Querétaro in the 1950s, not before having made strategic
business alliances with a private developer company, the ICA, which not only built most of the highway
from Mexico City, but also a highway by-pass in Querétaro. Previously to starting the construction of
the by-pass highway, the ICA and its partners bought plenty of then agricultural land in the outskirts
of the city. This event marks the ending of the standstill of the city’s growth and the beginning of an
era of extraordinary expansion (and speculation). The new plan for Querétaro was issued in 1964 and
by 1970, the population reached almost 113,000. After 50 years from the detonation by the super-
highway, Querétaro counts now 1 million inhabitants, a twenty-time increment from the 50,000 of a
century and a half. We can say that since the 1960s with the urban plan for Querétaro, the city has been
configured as a machine for speculation since the 1970s. This dates are coincident with the advent of
planning as an official matter for local, state and federal governments in Mexico, and as we shall see,
with the adoption of features of the “new urban regime”.

Sprawl oriented urban projects, 1975 - 2005

In the past 30 years, Santiago de Querétaro3 has been characterized structurally as a model of urban
sprawl which stems from the highly accelerated growth of its population, favorable economic devel-
opment and the predominance of a speculative model of urban growth. The city’s population has
increased to an estimated one million in 2005, and presented the highest rate of growth for gross inter-
nal product in the country in recent years. This recent period has also seen the emergence of various
strategic urban projects that have fostered that growth. These projects have generally been the result
of governmental decisions at the state level, given that the municipal authorities in reality have had
very few resources to cope with a greater level of decision making. In many cases, as it is mentioned

136 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

below and besides the governmental policies, strategic alliances with the private sector have been
instrumental in the development of such projects.

Large urban projects came into view in the decade of the 1970s, when the population of the city
scarcely approached 70,000 and the highway connecting Querétaro with Mexico City was of relatively
recent construction, at the end of the 1950s. This connection has perhaps been the trigger for more
powerful development in the city. Around the period of the highway connection, an ambitious urban
plan was published (1964) that was prepared by the state and federal governments in conjunction with
a construction company (ICA) that had had broad access to public contracts since the days of President
Alemán. (Ill. 74)

The plan included large infrastructure projects, such as the city’s northeast freeway, in conjunction
with which ICA bought large quantities of land (then agricultural) that were destined primarily for
industrial use (mostly for subsidiary enterprises of the ICA) and that even today continues to being
commercialized, atomized into small urban parcels. In this period, the industrial zone in which large
companies are located was laid out, the first airport was built, provision was made to build University
City at the Hill of the Bells, and the urbanization of the Jurica garden subdivision (362 hectares) was
begun. At the end of this decade, the population reached 113,000 inhabitants, in increase of more than
60% for the period.
The 1970s were characterized in Mexico first by import substitutions and industry protectionism that
ended with the economic crisis of 1976 and later by the so-called “oil bonanza” that led to another for-
midable crisis at the beginning of the following decade. Although the city’s growth went from 113,000
inhabitants in 1970 to 216,000 in 1980, practically doubling the population in only 10 years, no large
urban projects were undertaken in this period, perhaps because of the long reach of the 1964 urban
plan and the major currency devaluation that took place in the mid-1970s.

Illustration 74. Plan urbano de Querétaro,

1964. Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro.

Chapter 6: Querétaro 137

 The 1980s which began in Mexico with great expectations because of the oil bonanza, led rapidly, in
1982, to the first great economic crisis and, five years later, the second. Hyperinflation wreaked havoc
with the national economy and consequently with the development of the city. Querétaro finished
this period with a population of 550,000 inhabitants, an increase greater than the 150% explainable
in large part by migration from Mexico City after the 1985 earthquake. Two urban projects stand out
during this period, the Corregidora stadium and the Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez auditorium, both the
initiative and property of the state government.
The 1990s in Mexico can be divided into two periods, corresponding closely with two six-year presi-
dential terms: The first, of President Salinas, markedly neoliberal in that many state properties were
privatized, and the second, which can be thought of as a period of transition to democracy, under
President Zedillo. Both periods are linked by responsibility for the economic crisis of 1995. In Queré-
taro the neoliberal boom of the first half of the decade, was accompanied by the appearance of vari-
ous urban projects of a speculative nature, such as the authorization of another garden subdivision of
lower density, El Campanario (500 hectares), and the authorization, promotion and development by
state government of the so-called South Center (200 hectares), which included the construction of a
new bus terminal. Also in this period the urbanization of a large area (single function) of subsidized
housing (San Pedrito Peñuelas) was begun to the north of the city and has been used to develop low-
cost housing (also of low quality) in a neighborhood with a high density of irregular settlements (Men-
chaca). At the end of the decade, with a state government emerging from a party different from the
official party then in power (the PRI), only one strategic project was carried out, the intercontinental
airport along with various urban projects like the Cultural Center in the Alameda and the Ecocentro,
an trade fair center placed in the outskirts of the spreading urban footprint. The population in 2000
reached 790,000 inhabitants, with 42% growth for the decade, a figure that, although being smaller
than in past decades, can most certainly be seen as high.
In the current decade, management of new speculative development projects has begun even though
there are more than 45,000 vacant lots within the metropolitan zone from a total of 190,000 lots in the
municipality of Querétaro (a 24% vacancy!). This is an area of opportunity to be controlled and reversed
with planning instruments on the one hand and with the design of truly strategic urban projects for
the city (and for the citizens) on the other.

3 Analysis of fragmentation in the City of Querétaro

Like most cities of our time, Querétaro has a mixture of patterns and structures that have been devel-
oped by natural (bottom-up) and artificial (top-down) construction processes that have resulted in
organic and mechanical structures. These processes of the city exhibit spatial organization and behav-
ioural patterns that can help to explain the current city form and in some cases (as Kostof et al. have
proposed), its meaning. This part of the sixth chapter presents a view of today’s Querétaro through the
lens of the relationship of structures and patterns analyzed in the second chapter, using images of the
current structure (aerial views) and depicting patterns of spatial organization; corresponding behav-
ioural patterns are pictured as well, from a citizen’s point of view: the street level of public spaces.
Before that, I would again like to bring to the table the issue of fragmentation, as the main structural
problem of cities today. Take, for instance, the administrative fragmentation that can be appreciated
in Querétaro by looking at its urban spot with the municipal and sub-municipal, or delegational, divi-
sions. Currently, the metropolitan area of the city of Querétaro is administrated through seven del-
egations of the municipality of Querétaro and three other contiguous municipalities: El Marqués to
the east, Huimilpan to the south and Corregidora to the west. This administrative fragmentation is of
course, nowhere near as problematic as that in the metropolitan area of Mexico City, which is under

138 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

the administration of 16 delegations in the Federal District and another 42 municipalities in two con-
tiguous states, for a total of 58 different entities. But this type of fragmentation already presents a
challenge to governance for any urban territory that certainly does not accept political divisions as a
limit on growth.

Illustration 75 shows that Querétaro has a consolidated

core, a series of more or less consolidated inner-city areas around it and a number of scattered ‘satel-
lites’: a typical image of urban sprawl. Even though the ‘urban spot’ looks homogeneous, the urban
fabric is not. Let us analyze now the urban spot as a physical structure in relation to the variable
“income”, a socio-economic pattern (Ill. 76). The urban spot now looks more fragmented. Fragmenta-
tion by income is present because of the grouping of income categories. Income groups tend to form
‘clusters’ that obey an ‘ordering’ of sets of socio-economic groups that are not mixed in the urban
tissue. These clusters and their ordering forms (a pattern of segregation) correspond to physical struc-
tures in contemporary Querétaro, in the different areas analyzed, as we will see below.
Although gross density has been called into question as a plain indicator for planning, we can still use
it to illustrate the heterogeneity of the habitational use of a city. Querétaro grew swiftly in the second
half of the 20th century both in population and surface area. The overall gross density of the city was
56.65 inhabitants per hectare by 2000. The structure of gross densities in Querétaro also presents evi-
dence of fragmentation. Gross Densities by AGEB4 , illustrates the different densities in the city and
their positioning. To obtain gross habitational densities, we have researched census population data
(2000) and divided the population by the area of every basic geo-statistical area. We established five
different kinds of densities, ranging from very low to very high, according to relative Mexican stand-
ards. Inhabitants by hectare are the first measure for overall densities. The lightest areas correspond to
the lowest densities (0 – 30 h/Ha). The darkest areas correspond to the highest densities found, from
190 to 330 inhabitants per hectare (h/Ha), which is still a rather low density compared to other cities.
In fact, large urban areas present low or very low gross densities, the two lighter tones of colour in
Illustration 77.
An interesting comparison is that of the grouping of densities to the clustering by income in the struc-
ture of the city. It seems that the highest densities correspond to the lowest income levels: the more
affluent people choose to live in low-density areas, while the choices for the poor are to live in ‘official’
high density mono-functional housing sectors (see the Northern Block Zone analyzed below) or to live
in unofficial, ‘irregular’ settlements on the outskirts or in leftover territories with low gross densities
and with the hope that their living conditions will improve with time. Illustration 77 also shows areas of
opportunity for re-densification in the inner city, like Arco Norte, an industrial zone of the sixties now
in reconversion process to housing, general services and commercial uses.
Other kinds of fragmentation may be observed today in Querétaro, both in its structure and in its
functional patterns. I will illustrate two: fragmentation by mobility infrastructure and fragmentation
by commercial location. Fragmentation of the auto-mobility infrastructure is illustrated in Illustration
78 . The central areas of the city are well connected by a motorway ring and a series of East to West
primary avenues. However, the primary grid undergoes fragmentation in the North South direction,
because of borders like the river and the railway track. The peripheral zones are not well connected to
the rest of the city, partly because of the artificial border that the ring presents, just like a modern wall
of the city that has only a few gates, insufficient for the traffic generated by the growing population in
the territories outside of the ring.
Fragmentation by clustering of the commercial zones is observed in the Metropolitan Area of Queré-
taro. New trends of commercialization have displaced the small, local-scale commerce (like the typi-
cal corner store), replacing them with large super and hyper-markets, located mainly in the primary
avenue system as Illustration 79 shows. It is evident that commercial zones have taken locations along

Chapter 6: Querétaro 139

 Illustration 75. Querétaro Metropolitan Area. Illustration 76. Querétaro Metropolitan Area.
Municipal division, 2000. An evidence of urban Income level by AGEB, 2000. Areas with darker
sprawl, complicated with administrative frag- hues correspond to higher income levels.
mentation. Source: INEGI, Gobierno del Estado Source: INEGI, Gobierno del Estado de Queré-
de Querétaro. Information processing by Ixchel taro. Information processing by Ixchel García
García and Ernesto Philibert Petit. Photocom- and Ernesto Philibert Petit. Photocomposition
position by Alexis Ramírez by Alexis Ramírez

Illustration 77. Querétaro Metropolitan Area.

Illustration 78. Querétaro Metropolitan Area.
Gross densities by AGEB, 2000. Source: INEGI,
Primary avenue system, 2004. Source: Gobi-
Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro. Informa-
erno del Estado de Querétaro, Municipio de
tion processing by Ixchel García and Ernesto
Querétaro. Information processing by Innes
Philibert Petit. Photocomposition by Alexis
Webster and Ernesto Philibert Petit. Photo-
Ramírez
composition by Alexis Ramírez

140 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 79. Querétaro Metropolitan Area. Illustration 80. Analyzed areas location in the
Commercial areas location, 2000. Source: Gobi- Metropolitan Zone of Querétaro. Information
erno del Estado de Querétaro, Municipio de processing by Ixchel García and Ernesto Philib-
Querétaro. Information processing by Ixchel ert Petit. Photocomposition by Alexis Ramírez
García, Rubén Jiménez and Ernesto Philibert
Petit. Photocomposition by Alexis Ramírez

Illustration 81. Querétaro Metropolitan Area,

aerial perspective, 2000. Image composed
using a DEM and C4D by Alexis Ramírez.

Chapter 6: Querétaro 141

 the motorway of Querétaro’s inner ring. The typology of these commercial areas is imported from the
‘globalized’ culture: a large parking lot in the front, and a huge industrial-type box in the back. This
typology has little to contribute in knitting an urban tissue. Moreover, it produces fragmentation since
it is mostly accessible to vehicles, with little accessibility for pedestrians. By the way, in Querétaro, a
relatively small percentage of the population (44% of the households) has access to a car.
Analysis of fragmentation in eight areas of Querétaro.

After a look at the current structure of the city, let us examine eight areas within Querétaro, making a
brief analysis of their definition and preponderant planning method, their patterns of spatial organiza-
tion and space-time relationship and briefly considering of the patterns of thought and values that
might have produced their urban form. I will try to illustrate patterns with pictures taken at the street-
level, with my comments on them in the corresponding captions.
It is surprising how fragmentation, in the sense of different typologies can exist in the same city, even
though that the same city can be perceived as a whole.
The areas presented were selected either because of their ample possibilities for being subject of inter-
vention for increasing connectivity, like the Northern area of Punta Norte, (Jurica-Juriquilla-El Salitre) or
their strong imageability in the citizens’ minds, like the historical centre (Centro Histórico). Other areas
were selected because of the intricate problem of fragmentation by infrastructure that they present,
like the area of Puerta Santa María or the so-called Puerta Corregidora. Areas like the irregular settle-
ments (Menchaca) and the so-called “Northen Block” (San Pedrito Peñuelas) were included because
of the patterns of social problems they present. The Arco Norte area, which had been an important
industrial zone, is included in the analysis because of its current transformation into an undefined
area, partly because of the global reconversion of industry, starting in the late 20th century and partly
because of the new kind of uses it presents, i.e. commercial areas with huge parking lots in the front or
gated residential communities. Most of all, the areas represent a variety of structures and patterns that
can help illustrate the ideas in the first part of this chapter and might well provide a basis for a better
understanding of the complex organization of the city. The following table and map illustrates the
locations and sizes of the areas selected in relation to their names for clear identification: Illustration
80, 81.

1. Rivera de Querétaro
This is a strategic strip of urban territory has been created by a natural boundary, the Querétaro River,
and an artificial one, the railroad. Although this double boundary serves as connecting infrastructure
from east to west, it has been an obstacle to north-south spatial connectivity in the city.
Clearly, this area is structured on a frankly sector-based approach to transportation. The creation of
the railway never took into consideration the urban fabric that existed at the time, much less that
which has developed since then.
Along its length, different types of areas are identifiable; we have chosen and named the following
five: La Cañada, Parque Álamos, Centro Histórico (the city center), Parque de las Campanas, and Bajío.
As it generally occurs in the artificial city model, the morphological orientation of the area is toward
transportation, but with a sector-based vision. The predominant physical connection in the river area
is one of accessibility. In its heyday, the river offered access to water, mainly for the textile industry
(e.g. Hércules and la Cañada); later, in the 19th century, the introduction of the railroad brought better
(longitudinal) connections between Querétaro and the rest of the country, but placed a barrier for
transversal connections.
Despite its location on land with a clearly linear orientation, the railway also has characteristics of
the ideal network although each segment can be analyzed separately and in detail. The separation

142 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 82. Photocomposition by Alexis
Ramírez Illustration 84. Gross densities by AGEB (2000)
in the Rivera de Querétaro’s central section.
Relatively high densities area are observed to
the north of the railway track. However, densi-
ties along Avenida Universidad are rather low,
especially to the east. The AGEB in the west-
ern tip of the diagram, with the lowest gross
density is where the University of Querétaro
campus is located, and to the north, the area
with 16 inhabitants per hectare corresponds to
former industrial areas in process of reconver-
sion. Source: INEGI. Information processing
by Ixchel García and Ernesto Philibert Petit.
Photocomposition by Alexis Ramírez

Illustration 83. Structure of the central section of the Rivera de Querétaro. The winding avenue running
from east to west, is Avenida Universidad, where the river is located. To the north, the straight line corre-
sponds to the railway tracks. Source: INEGI

Chapter 6: Querétaro 143

 between diverse segments is notable. La Cañada, the easternmost section, is physically separated by
a natural boundary of steep cliffs, the river and the railway; the “Álamos” neighbourhood was the first
closed community in Querétaro and dates back fifty years. Currently, it is an island within the urban
landscape.
The Rivera has the structural organization of a tree, with an opportunity to evolve to a semi-lattice if
connections are made. It is a product of a top-down planning model in most of its segments. Excep-
tions could be some parts of La Otra Banda, Illustration 85 which is in a good part a self-structured
barrio. In general, we deal here with patterns corresponding to rational and linear thought models.
The insertion of the railway track corresponds to a typically partial vision of engineering, based on a
pattern of rational but fragmented thought of the city, with patterns of values of expansion and com-
petition. One of the structuring axes of the area, the railway track, comes from an image of “progress
by transport, expansion by accessibility”.

2. Arco Norte (The Northern Arc)

Since the middle of the past century, this area has been designated for heavy industry as it became
established in the city. Today, the area is basically an archipelago of isolated elements, some still char-
acterized by industrial use and others with more varied uses, but still isolated. In the northern part,
adjacent to the southbound side of Bernardo Quintana Boulevard, diverse commercial businesses have
been located, generally following the imported model that places parking at the front of the property
and the warehouse at the rear Illustration 92. The western portion of this area is composed mainly of
industrial properties in the process of reconversion to other uses. Industry that has settled in this area
has done so based mainly on accessibility to principal transportation routes. One can even make out
the railway links or “spurs” that gave several of these industries access to the railway network. Most of
these connections are no longer functional, but they continue to fragment the urban fabric.
The company that built the then northeast freeway, which now bears the name of its largest investor
– Bernardo Quintana – used connections and the exercise of capitalist-industrial power and set a prec-
edent of the “new” urban regime to carry out the purchase, subdivision, promotion and sale of land
in the area in question. Power relationships have, in many cases, been managed through speculative
property ownership.
Oriented toward transportation, the area is extremely well-connected to the primary road network of
urban highways, Bernardo Quintana Boulevard to the north and east, and to the west Fifth of Febru-
ary Avenue, the highway towards San Luis Potosí. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, the area has good
access to the principal railway and to its secondary branches, several of which have fallen into disuse.
The above information defines an urban area with physical connections oriented toward accessibility
which was, in its time, the necessary condition for sustaining the industrial growth of the city and, to a
large extent, of the state. This accessibility has varied with the contextual conditions of the area: the
primary roadways that connect to the main regional roads are inadequate due to growth in vehicular
traffic. This was caused by the addition of housing to the area and the growth of the encroaching
urban expanse, all of which puts accessibility in jeopardy due to combination of incompatible uses and
lack of road restructuring.
It can be seen in this area that, from the start, the territorial ideal was a large-sized network that, in its
time, was exempt from the urban fabric, outside the city limits. The original land use pattern was seg-
regated industry and, although lately this area has been rationalized, this separation persists. It could
even be said to have worsened since residential and commercial areas have opted for discontinuous
spatial formats and are not linked to one another. The archipelago continues to be the pattern of land
use. It is noteworthy, but logical that right now the area’s density is very low relative to the average for
Querétaro’s urban area. This presents an important opportunity for redensification.

144 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 85. Structure of La Otra Banda, a popular barrio named as “on the other side” of the river.

Illustration 86. Avenida Universidad, the river Illustration 87. Lines of trees also run along
runs along the axis. Ernesto Philibert Petit Avenida Universidad. Ernesto Philibert Petit

Illustration 88. Pedestrians and cyclists in Ave-

nida Universidad. Ernesto Philibert Petit

Chapter 6: Querétaro 145

 Illustration 89. Photocomposition by Alexis Illustration 91. Gross densities by AGEB(2000)
Ramírez in the Arco Norte, which is the area with the
lowest densities (16 to 25 inhabitants per hec-
tare) an area with a high potential of redensifi-
cation. Source: INEGI. Information processing
by Ixchel García and Ernesto Philibert Petit.
Photocomposition by Alexis Ramírez

Illustration 90. Structure of the Arco Norte area (highlighted). This area currently separates consolidated
urban tissue to the south and northwest respectively with very low densely populated territories. A result
of zoning, in process of reconversion. Source: INEGI

146 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 92. Commercial warehouse with Illustration 93. The industrial shape of the
a large car park in the front. Ernesto Philibert Pilgrim’s plant in the Arco Norte area. Many
Petit industries in process of moving away will
leave behind large chunks of urbanizable land
in the near future. Iveet Cordero

Illustration 94. Industrial plants like this are Illustration 95. Avenida Epigmenio González,
the common landscape in the Arco Norte area. a developing vehicular axis of the Arco Norte
Iveet Cordero area. Iveet Cordero

Illustration 96. The urban (?) space left between indus-

tries in the Arco Norte area. Iveet Cordero

Chapter 6: Querétaro 147

 The area is structured as a tree, with good potential for developing a cyclical grid if the connections
are made. This is a promising opportunity because of the proportionally large amount of vacant land
still found in the area.
Planning for this area has clearly been top-down in terms both of the original concept and of its historic
development, even including the start of the rationalization in the 1990s when isolated projects began
to give the area a new appearance.
Because the area has been made up of individualized elements, without many connections among
them, pedestrian movement has been unstructured for lack of a defined system of walkways. The
road infrastructure is not suited to the activities recently introduced in the area and its surroundings;
although there are existing connections to principal roadways, the connections themselves are inef-
ficient.

3. Northern Reserve
Located in the north of the city, this area is mainly composed of former “ejido” 5 lands (usually undevel-
oped land under collective ownership). Until now, there has been little urbanization in this area, but it
has recently been the object of land speculation, tending to be used for urban ones providing housing
to the upper socioeconomic classes.
The area has been shaped by a typical capitalist-residential model, developed by subdividers who
have speculated by purchasing ejidal land in hopes of future land-use conversions that would raise the
land’s value. The configuration trend seems to be that of satellite elements linked to main roadways
without the connections that would make those elements interdependent.

Illustration 97. Source: INEGI. Photocomposi- Illustration 99. Gross densities by AGEB (2000)
tion by Alexis Ramírez. in the Punta Nortearea. Extremely low densi-
ties are present in this area. Most of this terri-
tory is currently subject to a land-use change,
from agricultural to urban. Source: INEGI.
Information processing by Ixchel García and
Ernesto Philibert Petit Petit. Photocomposi-
tion by Alexis Ramírez

148 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 98. Structure of the Punta Norte area, comprised by the former haciendas of Jurica, Juriquilla
and El Salitre. Source: INEGI

Illustration 100. A view of the 57 Motor- Illustration 101. The suburb (exurb) of Juriq-
way, Mexico’s most important, at its passing uilla, as seen from the road. Ernesto Philibert
through Punta Norte. Ernesto Philibert Petit Petit

Illustration 102. The road from Querétaro to Illustration 103. The suburb of Jurica. An inner
Juriquilla. Ernesto Philibert Petit street with large gated single-family houses,
lined with tall trees. Ernesto Philibert Petit

Chapter 6: Querétaro 149

 Because the intention is to create an area dedicated to those with upper-middle and high incomes,
and because the housing model is single-family, horizontal and composed of independent units, the
density in the area is predictably lower than in the rest of the city. Nevertheless, if said model were to
be modified, there is great potential for housing a large number of people in this area without lowering
the quality of life.
Planned using a top-down model, the area contains several gated communities that subdivide the
city and act as partitions, disregarding contiguous space. In areas of this type, little value is placed on
pedestrian movement. When it is considered, it is only with regard to the interior of housing units.
Vehicular movement predominates over any other type of mobility.

4. The Historic Centre

The geographic and historic centre of the city is delineated by two east-west boundaries, one natural
(the Querétaro River) and one manmade (Zaragoza Avenue). Both have functioned as semi-permeable
membranes for the northern and southern sections of the city, which connect to the centre by a very
limited number of links.
This area has been, since its origins, the centre of religious and governmental power. Originally, it
included housing, commercial activity and services, a mix which changed throughout the 20th cen-
tury and continues to change today. The number of housing units has decreased, and the centre now
focuses mainly on commerce and services. The centre has great tourist potential, which has already

Illustration 104. Source: INEGI. Photocomposi- Illustration 106. Gross densities by AGEB
tion by Alexis Ramírez. (2000) in the Historic Center area. Relatively
high net densities are close to the Alameda and
the Barrio de San Francisquito (136 inhabitants
per hectare) and in La Otra Banda (91 inhabit-
ants per hectare). The rest of the historic center
presents a medium low to medium net density,
with a good potential for increading it. Source:
INEGI. Information processing by Ixchel García
and Ernesto Philibert Petit Petit. Photocompo-
sition by Alexis Ramírez

150 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 105. Structure of the Historic Center area. The Alameda park to the south and Querétaro river to
the north, limit this area, classified by the UNESCO as World Heritage (1996). Source: INEGI

Illustration 107. Pedestrians enjoy a Sunday Illustration 108. A lively pedestrian street in
stroll in Querétaro’s Historic Center. Ernesto Querétaro’s Historic Center. Ernesto Philibert
Philibert Petit Petit

Illustration 109. A busy pedestrian alley, Calle-

jón Libertad. Ernesto Philibert Petit

Chapter 6: Querétaro 151

 been exploited to some extent but lacks the infrastructure that would make the area function more
effectively. A change can also be seen in the type of surviving housing, with a decrease in the number
of residents which is consistent with lower population density. The area is oriented to accessibility to
the pubic plazas which are defined by the pedestrian streets that connect them. Owing to the network
that these pedestrian streets create, the integration of neighbourhoods in the centre is defined by the
plazas.
Physical connections are defined according to access to the plazas which contain the institutions of
power in the city and state. This accessibility has taken different forms in the historic centre, depend-
ing on the functions involved.
Inside the centre, two territorial ideals can be distinguished: the western section is a network of right
angles, while the eastern section tracks a less rigid combination of perpendicular lines with other
organic forms.
This central area, which was once mainly residential, has lost population and is filling with commerce
and service businesses, leading to still lower density, however providing use mixture. The area is
organized as a solidly interlaced network in which it is quite difficult to make major structural modifi-
cations.
This is perhaps the part of the city with the greatest pedestrian movement. In spite of the narrowness
of the majority of streets and walkways, they are strongly defined by the nodes that they connect.
Pedestrian streets connecting plazas and gardens are a dominant element in this type of movement.
Given the morphological characteristics of the roadways, it is easy to find one’s way around.

5 and 6. The Northern Block, San Pedrito Peñuelas and Menchaca

This area is located on the northeast edge of the city and connected by recently constructed primary
roads. It is probably one of the densest areas of the city and one of those with the lowest quality of life.
Here irregular settlements (some in the process of legalization) are mixed with regular ones (some of

Illustration 111. Structure of the Bloque Norte

Illustration 110. Source: INEGI. Photocomposi-
area. To the left, machine-like formal housing
tion by Alexis Ramírez.
developments, to the right, organic informal
settlements. Source: INEGI

152 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Illustration 112. Gross densities by AGEB
(2000) in the Bloque Norte area. The ‘formal’
settlements to the west have relatively high
densities, while the informal settlements to
the east present very low net densities, simi-
lar to those of high-income developments
(Jurica had gross densities of 15 to 19 inhab-
itants per hectare in 2000). Source: INEGI.
Information processing by Ixchel García and
Ernesto Philibert Petit. Photocomposition by
Alexis Ramírez

Illustration 113. A panoramic view of the Illustration 114. Pedestrian workers on their
‘formal’ monofunctional housing develop- way to the Bloque Norte area below.
ment of the Bloque Norte. Ernesto Philibert Ernesto Philibert Petit
Petit

Illustration 115. A ‘formal’ housing develop- Illustration 116. A street in a barrio of the
ment in the Bloque Norte area. Ernesto Philib- Bloque Norte used as mechanic workshop.
ert Petit On the background, an irregular settlement
holds tight to the hill waiting for better times
to come. Ernesto Philibert Petit

Chapter 6: Querétaro 153

 which started illegally), all inhabited by a low-income population. The area has many infrastructure
deficiencies as well as deficiencies in its spatial quality.
Urban transportation lines are one of the elements that define where illegal settlements can be located.
Given the economic situation of the inhabitants, they must depend on this method of transportation
to move about and visit work centres, schools and shopping districts.
This area is the product of diverse, mostly speculative interests, and the illegal use of ejido land for
housing is one of the most common ways to speculate on land values.
In the case of those settlements that started out legally, we also find speculative models that have
resulted in the development of low-quality residential zones in which high profits are made through
the sale of properties to credit-granting agencies to be used for basic housing.
The land here has been fundamentally dedicated to housing with high densities compared to the rest
of the city.

7. Puerta Corregidora
Located to the southeast of the city, this area is situated on yet-to-be-settled roads. Vacant proper-
ties predominate. Three dominant elements can be distinguished: the former Centro Expositor and
fairgrounds; the stadium; and the long-distance bus terminal, all located along one roadway that con-
nects them to the rest of the city and region. The latter two have become a virtual city limit. Because of

Illustration 119. Gross densities by AGEB

Illustration 117. Source: INEGI. Photocomposi-
(2000) in the Puerta Corregidora area, which
tion by Alexis Ramírez.
is comprised by the AGEBs with 59.7, 1 and 0
inhabitants per hectare in 2000. This area has a
high potential of linking the city inside the ring
with the Centro Sur, a top-down planned urban
project which has not grown as expected, per-
haps by its isolation from the rest of the urban
fabric. Source: INEGI. Information processing
by Ixchel García and Ernesto Philibert Petit.
Photocomposition by Alexis Ramírez

154 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Illustration 105. Struc-
ture of the Historic Center
area. The Alameda park
to the south and Queré-
taro river to the north,
limit this area, classified
by the UNESCO as World
Heritage (1996). Source:
INEGI

Illustration 120. The Corregidora stadium seen Illustration 121. The bus station, center left
from the east. In the background, city sprawl as seen from the east. The Civic Center, the
gains terrain to the Cimatario hill. Ernesto Phi- municipal government new headquarters,
libert Petit stands alone at the top of the Centro Sur devel-
opment. Ernesto Philibert Petit

Illustration 122. A small queue of cars go down Illustration 123. Incoming pedestrians have no
into Querétaro from the Civic Center. Alexis choice to walk from the bus station to the rest
Ramírez of the city. Ernesto Philibert Petit

Chapter 6: Querétaro 155

 their function and form, they are both isolated and isolating elements in the city. The western portion
of this area is dedicated to middle class housing with medium densities.
This area is defined by transportation and by the roadways that transect it. The structure originated
with the roadways which seem to be the fundamental governing axis and have been developed with-
out consideration for adjoining areas.
Accessibility among the principal elements of this area characterizes the rest of it. The Querétaro-
Mexico highway marks a categorical separation between the northern and southern borders.
The area acts as a series of linearly connected nodes, except for the residential section in which the
connections are partial and not continuous.
Medium densities hold steady in the residential section, where commercial uses and services mix with
residences. In the central and western sections, current densities are very low because there is so little
housing there.
In the area around the stadium and the bus station, pedestrian mobility is not a simple matter since,
although some pedestrian ways exist, the distances to be covered are very long and the conditions
make walking a complex undertaking. There are few shady areas, and there are few people because
the high-speed roadways pose a real danger to pedestrians.

8. Puerta Santa María

The intersection of two highways, the freeway and the toll road to Celaya, with the inner city ring road
and Constitución Avenue forms this node which may have the highest traffic in the city.

Illustration 126. Gross densities by AGEB

(2000) in the Puerta Santa María area. Low
figures are present here. To its southeast, a
Illustration 124. Source: INEGI. Photocomposi- low income - high gross density area, Lomas
tion by Alexis Ramírez. de Casablanca, with up to 208 inhabitants per
hectare. To its south, a high income - low den-
sity area, the Club Campestre, or Country Club
with 20 inhabitants per hectare. Source: INEGI.
Information processing by Ixchel García and
Ernesto Philibert Petit. Photocomposition by
Alexis Ramírez

156 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Illustration 105.
Structure of the His-
toric Center area. The
Alameda park to the
south and Querétaro
river to the north, limit
this area, classified by
the UNESCO as World
Heritage (1996). Source:
INEGI

Illustration 127. A pedestrian waits for a public Illustration 128. Constituyentes avenue look-
transport unit at the Puerta Santa María cross- ing west from an elevated pass-through.
roads. Alexis Ramírez Alexis Ramírez

Illustration 129. The bullfight ring or plaza de

toros Santa María, stands isolated from the
urban tissue as many other potential nodes of
Querétaro. Alexis Ramírez

Chapter 6: Querétaro 157

 The pattern of node formation and growth has been incremental. When the Pan American Highway
was routed and built during the economic expansion of the 20th century, it set the southern border of
the city, called Constitution Avenue, the name it still bears today. The highway connected Querétaro
with the south and west. Some time later the western freeway, now known as 5 de febrero Avenue, was
built and now makes up part of the current ring road. From the intersection of these two roads, there
later emerged the federal toll road that connects Querétaro with the western part of the country. In
this node, important public hospitals, the bull ring (la Santa María), a movie theatre complex and, most
recently, a shopping centre are located.
The morphological orientation of the area, therefore, has been defined by transportation, with physi-
cal connections for vehicular movement. The territorial ideal is not network-based, but road-based.
Its shape comes from the involvement of highway transportation engineering much more than from
urban design or planning.
There is no defined pattern of land use, except for today’s urban islands which are connected only by
vehicular networks. The entire structural organization is of the tree type. Low density is also present
here.
The area originated from a system of top-down planning in combination, or perhaps in complicity
with the sector-oriented approach of transportation engineering, the most efficient combination for
producing a place that is really “no place.”

Probable futures
After analyzing eight diverse areas of Querétaro, each with completely different features, problems
and potential, we first concluded that all share one thing in common: fragmentation. Socio-spatial
segregation, whether caused by differences of economic activity, population density, income, acces-
sibility or other factors, comes into play in most areas of the city.
Querétaro, like most cities in Latin America, is at a critical crossroads and can decide between sprawled,
fragmented and speculative development or reconstruction of its urban fabric, which has been
stretched and damaged over the past century. The city can decide whether to continue splintering or
opt for a model of social, economic and ecological connectivity. The former very likely describes the
city’s future, but the latter is also not only possible but desirable. The difference may lie in creating
common visions of both futures.

We have studied a probable future for Querétaro, projecting population growth rates, migration bal-
ance and death rates through the year 2050. Our population projection for the metropolitan area coin-
cides with that of the state government, approximately 2.5 million in that year. For 2000, the census
population figures for the metropolitan area of Querétaro showed 787,341 inhabitants. We measured
the urban area for that year by computerized means. The result was 12,935 hectares (see figure 130).
The resulting ratio shows a gross density for metropolitan Querétaro of 60.86 inhabitants per hectare
in the year 2000, roughly half the gross density of metropolitan Mexico City for that year (116 inhabit-
ants per hectare6 ). The next time you consider Mexico City sprawl, recall that Querétaro was using
twice the area per capita at the turn of the last century. If gross density continues to decrease, we will
likely drop to 45 inhabitants per hectare in 2050. Figure 80, shows a probable footprint at that den-
sity with 2.5 million inhabitants. Figure 131 is a projected intermediate footprint with only 1.5 million
inhabitants, a situation that will probably happen in the near future.
Fragmentation and sprawl are not just a consequence of city structure; they are as well a consequence
of the patterns of life behind the structure, functional patterns that correspond to the city’s new uses,
construction and meaning. The adoption of patterns, such as the excessive use of the automobile; the
relatively new way of constructing the city in isolated chunks instead of by knitting urban tissue; new

158 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 130. Querétaro Metropolitan Area Illustration 131. Querétaro Metropolitan Area
(2004), the current footprintof the city. Urban (sometime in the near future) if gross density
sprawl is evident at nearly 1 million inhabit- remains close to the current figures. This foot-
ants with a gross density of around 60 inhabit- print prognosis, referred to the current foot-
ants per hectare. Source: INEGI, Gobierno del print, could reach 33,500 hectares with only 1.5
Estado de Querétaro. Information processing million inhabitants. Source: INEGI, Gobierno
by Ixchel García and Ernesto Philibert Petit. del Estado de Querétaro. Information process-
Photocomposition by Alexis Ramírez. ing by Ixchel García and Ernesto Philibert Petit.
Photocomposition by Alexis Ramírez.

Illustration 132. Querétaro Metropolitan Area

(a few years after the near future) if gross den-
sity remains low. This footprint prognosis is of
55,000 hectares with 2.5 million inhabitants.
Source: INEGI, Gobierno del Estado de Queré-
taro. Information processing by Ixchel García
and Ernesto Philibert Petit. Photocomposition
by Alexis Ramírez.

Chapter 6: Querétaro 159

 meanings of urban, suburban and exurban; and contemporary patterns of thought and values give
form to city structures in Querétaro as in most every city in the world.
Christopher Alexander has written that pervasive changes need to create a world in which living proc-
esses – and hence living structure – are attainable only through a transformation of society. I believe that
there is a reciprocal relationship between structure and patterns; thus I believe that patterns of society
can be transformed by transforming the structures where we live and that spatial planners might play
a major role in this process. (Ill. 133)

Illustration 133. The aqueduct of Querétaro

which brought water to the city in years of
expansion and need, reminds of the choice the
city has to take about its future at the begin-
ning of the 21st century. Ernesto Philibert
Petit

4 Spatial planning in Querétaro

A brief history of planning in Querétaro

Urban planning officially started by law (de jure) in Mexico in the 1970s, very much in time with the
start of the configuration of the “new urban regime” (de facto) for the local (municipal) administration
in the case of Querétaro.
In the 1970s, there was a “first generation” of urban plans, created centrally by a federal government
agency. These plans were short-sighted when looking at local issues.
“The carrying out of this first generation of urban plans in Mexico was achieved under a technocratic-
centralist vision and focuses that, in the majority of cases, were not consistent with the realities and
most pressing needs of the cities in question. Still more serious is the fact that these first plans did not
contain practical planning and management instruments to permit local authorities to take control of
urban growth and development strategies for the cities, strategies which until then had been in the
hands of private interests” (Abonce, 2004).
Even though the legislation gave full faculty to the municipal authorities, the plans were mostly devel-
oped by states governments, mostly because of the political control they represented but also because
of the lack of professionally educated planners in the municipalities. This last condition remains up to
the present. Early in the 1980s, a second generation of urban plans was created locally or almost locally
by the state government in the case of Querétaro, focused on spatial features and with advancements
in control instruments but with little or no concern for social issues.
However the 1982 plan had three aims to be remarked:
• The consolidation of the industrial sector with non-polluting industry;
• The exploitation of the splendid urban architectural heritage of the historic center, permitting
creation of a base for the tourism sector which, since then, has been strengthened to the point of
becoming the second most important economic activity in the city;

160 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

• The inclusion of a transit plan seeking to improve urban north-south permeability which was (is)
strongly limited by natural barriers such as the Querétaro River and by artificial barriers such as the
railroad.

At the beginning of the 90s, a third generation of urban plans was approved for Querétaro. It shows
progresses in the implementation of urban development strategies. Private consultants were hired for
the first time to participate along with officials in the planning process. Three “urban strategies” of this
1993 plan are:
• “The generation of poles of development in order to promote a reorientation of city growth trends,
with the goal of trying to offset the growth trends imposed by the private sector. The result was
the planning of two urban sub-centers, one in the north and the other in the south of the city”;
• “The consolidation of the transit plan in order to facilitate south-north and north-south displace-
ments, through a highly precise implementation of the plan’s instrumentation and schedule”;
• “The inclusion of the private sector in the construction of road infrastructure” (Abonce, 2004).

Almost seven years after the 1993 plans, “the municipal authorities discovered an important inconsist-
ency that originated with the existence (since 1994) of an administrative and management subdivision
that divided the municipal area into seven Delegations of which six form part of Querétaro’s urban
zone, a conurbation of the urban footprint with two neighboring municipalities (Corregidora and El
Marqués) and the existence of an urban plan that, although been updated twice, did not take this new
reality into consideration, neither methodologically nor instrumentally” (Abonce, 2004).
The response of the municipal authorities was to develop seven partial plans for the urban develop-
ment of delegations, that surprisingly, were carried out by seven different and un-coordinated consult-
ing firms. The plans lacked coherence with regard to methodologies for their realization, development
priorities and above all clear and uniform urban development strategies, since each plan considers
specific strategies for its territory without considering a global vision (Abonce, 2004).
Finally, the current municipal administration, which took office in September of 2003, has just finished
analyzing this critical situation and is taking measures intended to correct the city’s slow progress with
regard to urban development policies and strategies.

An evaluation of the plans for Querétaro was made in 2003-4. It identified the following areas of oppor-
tunity to be taken into account into the current planning process:
• The need for linking delegational nodes into a metropolitan network;
• The generation of coincident planning horizons between each of the plans;
• An integrated vision of the municipality and above all the entire urban area (currently 4 municipali-
ties);
• Uniformity with regard to establishment of the programmatic level in the seven delegational
plans;
• Homogeneous criteria for resolving the approximately 214 irregular settlements now in existence;
• Homogeneous methodological criteria for determining land use;
• A high percentage of urban growth in sectors considered in the plans as medium- or long-term
growth zones. This phenomenon discourages the consolidation and saturation of the urban nuclei
that now enjoy services and the needed infrastructure;
• The important proliferation of subdivisions, since in three years a total of 589 hectares were
approved for residential use (!);
• Disproportionate approval of changes in land use, which represent 816 hectares of which 90% (737
hectares) involved a change from land classified as ecologically protected to an urban develop-
ment use (!!).

Chapter 6: Querétaro 161

 Planning futures in the present Querétaro.
The local government decided in 2003 to review the former plans and requested private consultants
for a methodology for updating them. These plans should be finished by 2005 and have taken into
consideration the following aspects:
• A Metropolitan vision;
• Participation of the recently created (2003) Municipal Planning Institute, a de-centralized entity.
• Participation of the principal economic, social and political actors in consulting processes and the
search for consensus;
• Planning based on scenarios (desirable, probable and possible);
• Consideration of Urban Projects as potential consolidating elements of urban space;
• Analysis of the city beginning with the concept of Urban Networks;
• Development of a forceful communication strategy that facilitates the establishment and consult-
ing of the Plans, as well as design of follow-up procedures.

Fragmentation in Querétaro today.

Some considerations about fragmentation have been proposed by the author in the current planning
process of Querétaro, enhancing the sense of dealing with disconnection of different layers of net-
works: the structural and the pattern networks. These considerations include:
Economic fragmentation, that constrains positive cycles of financial resources, this means that it pre-
vents the investments made in a city reach a larger number of layers (most of all the less favoured) of
the community; investments are made in closed circles, generally of a speculative nature, what has
contributed to the growing separation between rich and poor and to the trend of the middle-income
layer of disappearing.
Social fragmentation, that has to do with the segregation of social layers in the urban territory, a phe-
nomenon that certainly exists in the cities since remote times, but that has been exacerbated in the
global city in which there are less and less spaces for public coexistence between social layers.
Ecological fragmentation, that is the well-known circumstance of the polluting city, the insatiable con-
sumer of regional and extra-regional resources in which little or nothing has been done to reduce,
reuse and recycle the consumed resources, a fragmentation with nature that also produces damage to
flora and fauna and even the depletion of species.
Spatial fragmentation, which is cause and consequence of the aforementioned economic, social and
ecological fragmentations. The contemporary Querétaro began to be fragmented spatially by the over-
position of transport infrastructure works since the 19th century, like the railroads in their moment of
expansion and urban motorways in more recent times. Now, the city is spatially fragmented, forming
an archipelago of small urban islands, either like gated communities or slums. It is spatially fragmented
by the proliferation (in a wide variety of scales) of commercial centres conceived spatially to ease the
accessibility of the automobile and thus denying spatial connectivity to the urban fabric.

Connectivity as a strategy for tomorrow

How to change all these negative interdependent cycles that produce fragmentation? The intercon-
nection of the angles of the problem of fragmentation is a clue to the solution, which should be inter-
connected as well. Economic, social, ecological and spatial fragmentation should not be addressed
separately as they actually are. In the old paradigm of Cartesian analysis, it could be said that the zone
of possible solutions to this problems lies in the intersection of the disciplines involved: economics,

162 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

sociology, ecology and spatial planning and design. However, Cartesian – sectorial approaches have
proven to fail when addressing a problem of such complexity as the city. Hopefully, new scientific find-
ings in the theory of complexity are bringing new possibilities for the instrumentation of a solution
to the problem of fragmentation. Urban projects might be an effective response to fragmentation if
oriented purposely to achieve connectivity goals.
In the particular case presented here – strategies of connectivity for urban projects for Querétaro - a
synthesis of strategic principles was proposed in a first round of discussions with a group of officials,
consultants and experts, and is part of the empirical settings of this thesis:
Limit the city’s footprint according to probable population projections; protect green agricultural land
and natural landscapes as an important asset; identify, respect and reinterpret historical patterns (the
collective memory of the city), encourage infill development, mix uses and users, etc.

Illustration 134. Ernesto Philibert Petit. Digital

composition.

Aims:
Increase gross density.
Development of the city should seek to increase its gross density. This is the first aim to be adopted. It
is a fact that without a minimum of gross density, other aims for connectivity could be futile or even
unthinkable. The aim here is to increase the current very low gross density of the city (60 inhabitants
per hectare in 2000) to a level of 120 in the next 25 years. Achieving optimum levels of gross density
may happen after, between 2030 and 2050 when the population figures of the city are projected to
become stabilised. This aim leads to specific programmatic actions in the city like constructing infill
developments; limit the spatial footprint by the adoption of specific policies, etc.

Global resources capture.

Urban interventions should be attractive to investing from outside the local economy. Results from this
aim are very desired by local governments. It may bring the economic possibility of making the
projects real. Several cases of large urban projects in cities everywhere have been attractors to impor-
tant investments. However the next two aims are a fundamental complement of this one, otherwise,
the global resources trend is to disappear from the city as fast as they arrived.

Chapter 6: Querétaro 163

 Surplus capture.
Value differentials in land generated by the development of the city, should be at least partially captured
by the city. This is a principle of equity in which the value capture theory is standing. It can prove to be
an important source of financing for generic or specific actions of the government. Some cities in Latin
America already obtain a good part of their financial resources from instruments of surplus capture.

Positive economic cycles.

Local and global investment in the city should reach the maximum economic layers in the city. This aim is
also meant to somehow reduce imbalances between rich and poor and increase opportunities for the
latter. Specific programs for recycling resources in needed layers of the community should be instru-
mented.

Social mix.
Interventions in the city should favour social mixing by eliminating barriers and favouring social connec-
tions. Spatial planning and design should address social fragmentation by laying new bridges to recon-
nect the splintered urban fabric.

Community sense.
Interventions in the city should take into account local identity and help to strengthen it. The personal
identity of citizens is strongly related to the identity of their cities while seeking to integrate a sense of
community in front of global networks

Common vision.
A common vision should be built, involving all stakeholders, and tackling social problems. Interventions in
the city should come from and help develop a common vision of the possible future.

Sustainable resource flow.

The flow of resources in the city should be cyclical and belong more to a metabolic than to a linear
scheme. Interventions in the city should favour reduction, reuse and recycle of natural resources.

Water supply.
As the scarcest natural resource in the city, water is of fundamental importance for its sustainability.
Urban interventions should be assessed by the impact in the consumption (and recycling) of this resource.

Flora and fauna conservation.

City development should consider putting aside specific areas for local flora and fauna conservation.

Pedestrian mobility.
As a fundamental factor of urban connectivity, pedestrian mobility should be protected and improved.
Interventions should enhance pedestrian path connectivity.

Vehicular mobility.
Mobility of vehicles should be rationalised in the city. The city should seek an investing balance
between public and private transportation infrastructure. Interventions in the city should enhance
vehicular connectivity.

164 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Imageability.
The communication relationship between urban space and its users is of fundamental importance.
Urban space should be clearly readable for the citizens.

Assessment with Instrumental Criteria

A qualitative approach to assessment that can be further quantified and thus measured is needed. We
have made a preliminary assessment with instrumental criteria, since the general aim of this work is to
propose interventions in the city through urban projects. We will use gross density as an indicator of
sprawl or fragmentation and as a criterion to assess potential interventions in the city. A goal here is
not to redensify only for the sake of a more compact city, but to achieve the emergence of complexity,
organized complexity.

Finally, we present here a chart (Ill. 135) with the preliminary qualitative evaluation of the eight areas
of study in Querétaro. The aim of this chart is to provide more elements to take decisions on where
is a priority to intervene with connectivity oriented criteria, by means of urban projects. The areas
studied are listed in the left column and the criteria described above are listed in the top row, grouped
by domain: spatial, economic, social and ecological. The dots are placed where the area studied is
thought to be a feasible area for each of the criteria specified. In this preliminary selective chart, the
area with more coincidences is the Rivera de Querétaro area, with 12, followed by the Arco Norte area
with 9, the two land reservations, the Puerta Corregidora area and the historic centre with 5 each one
and then the other areas with three or less. We have finally chosen the Arco Norte and Puerta Corregi-
dora areas to propose specific urban projects oriented to connectivity, given the circumstance that
they have large areas of deurbanised land where intervention might be more feasible in the short term
(see chapter 7).

Illustration 135. Prelim-

inary assessment chart.
Ernesto Philibert Petit.
Digital composition by
Alexis Ramírez.

5 Sprawl and the economic viability of Querétaro

I want to remark a study of the economic sustainability of the sprawl model currently followed by
Querétaro that was made after commenting the figures above described with colleagues and team
mates in the study, Ignacio Kunz Bolaños and Carlos Morales Schechinger, both specialized in value
and urban land. While having the initial growth figures, our team investigated specific land values and

Chapter 6: Querétaro 165

 ran a model developed by Carlos Morales Schechinger, to obtain estimated costs of urbanising for the
next 20 years according to the current model of growth.
For a better estimation of the urban land demand for the future, and its corresponding urbanising
costs, we had to consider the composition of the city’s socioeconomic structure, because the different
strata adopt different occupation forms and financial logics. So the first step was the construction of a
socioeconomic index to classify the Geo-Statistical Basic Areas (AGEBS in Spanish) of the metropolitan
area of Querétaro. Such index was constructed with 18 variables that permitted grouping the AGEBs in
three groups: high, medium and low income, with the outcome confronted with the nature and origin
of the areas classified.
Of the 642 thousand inhabitants of the metropolitan zone of Querétaro included in the analysis, 74.4%
was located in low income areas, 20.5% in medium income areas and only 5.1% in high income areas.
The annual mean rate of growth from 1990 to 2000 was of 3.5%, so for the year 2020, Querétaro is
expected to have an increase of population of nearly 800 thousand, so the population will come to be
the double than that registered in the 2000 census.
Gross densities observed in every one of these AGEB groups are shown in the next table, where as
expected, there is a fall of densities as the scale of the levels of income goes higher, however, the aver-
age gross density (60 inhabitants / hectare or i/Ha) is quite low, even in the areas of low income groups,
which only is of 69.5 i/Ha. It is important to bear in mind that a low density in urban zones means a
higher cost of urbanisation and maintenance per inhabitant, because the relationship between infra-
structure and urban equipment by inhabitant rises.

Table 1. Querétaro Metropolitan Area, 2000. Population classified by socioeconomic index

Population Percentage
Total Metropolitan Area 642,494 100.0
Low income 477,993 74.4
Middle income 131,939 20.5
High income 32,562 5.1

Based on the observed densities, the population increase and its distribution by income groups, we
obtained the next estimation of future demand of urban land.
Looking after analysing the price formation for the land, to be able to estimate the costs of urbanisa-
tion and surplus, a model was constructed by Carlos Morales Schechinger in which data on the current
land prices of diverse kinds of lots were processed.

Table 2. Querétaro Metropolitan Area 2000. Gross densities of population by income group

Low income 69.5 I/ Ha.

Mid income 56.4 I/ Ha.
High income 14.2 I/ Ha.

166 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

To calculate land values, prices taken into account were those of agricultural land, urban use land, non-
subdivided and sub-divided and urbanisation costs. Surplus values were calculated accordingly, with

Table 3. Querétaro Metropolitan Area. Urban land demand by income group, estimated to
2020

Low income 8,506 Ha

Mid income 2,895 Ha.
High income 2,835 Ha.
Total demand 2000-2020 14,236 Ha.

different stages in the urbanisation process studied, i.e. by change of use from agricultural to urban, by
subdivision and urbanisation and by commercialization.

Results obtained from the model are as follows:

table 4. land values and surplus estimation by income group. Queretaro Metropolitan Area,
2004

Low income groups price surplus %surplus X accumulated

Land for agricultural use 3 - - -
Land for urban use (gross) 100 97 3233% 32
Land for urban use (lotified, informal) 300 200 200% 100
Urbanisation costs 120
Land for urban use (urbanised) 525 105 35% 135
Total 525 405 13500%
Middle income groups price surplus %surplus X accumulated
Land for agricultural use 3 - - -
Land for urban use (gross) 150 147 4900% 49
Land for urban use (lotified, informal) 385 235 157% 128
Urbanisation costs 175
Land for urban use (urbanised) 1050 490 127% 292
Total 1050 875 29167%
High income groups price surplus %surplus X accumulated
Land for agricultural use 3 - - -
Land for urban use (gross) 200 197 6567% 66
Land for urban use (lotified, informal) 360 160 80% 120
Urbanisation costs 276
Land for urban use (urbanised) 1200 564 157% 308
Total 1200 924 30800%
Prices per square meter in MXP by October 2004
Own elaboration, with Ignacio Kunz Bolanos and with data processed in a model by Carlos Morales Schechinger

Chapter 6: Querétaro 167

 As it can be seen by the analysis of the figures above, the incorporation of urban land is accompanied
by the formation of enormous surplus which in the current conditions of the fiscal apparatus, go almost
exclusively into the hands of the owners of the land and / or developers. This is such an attractive situ-
ation in economic terms that generates terrible pressures to incorporate urban land as much as it is
possible, or permitted by the local authorities, giving as a consequence, the model of sprawl followed
by a number of Mexican and Latin-American cities. Finally, behind this model, strong economic inter-
ests prevail, subduing local officials, and keeping the community from learning further from the sprawl
issue, which is a much more costly model in its instrumentation and operation for the citizenship.
If the sprawl model persists, the future investment in land and urbanisation, taking into account the
prices investigated and the trends of population studied, would be as follows for the three socioeco-
nomic groups:

Table 5. Necessary investment in agricultural land and urbanisation 2000 - 2020. Querétaro
Metropolitan Area

In zones of low income 910 million

In zones of mid income 448 million
In zones of high income 688 million
Total for Querétaro 2000- 2020 2046 million

Figures in US Dollars, at 11.50 MXP per USD, November 2004

The municipality of Querétaro currently has a total annual revenue of nearly 48 million USD. With such
figures, keeping this standard of revenues, in the 20 years calculated, the total income of the munici-
pality would be of 960 million USD, a very low part of the amount needed to pay for the calculated
2046 million USD for urban growth. Now, conceding that the costs of urbanisation both land and serv-
ices for the mid and high income groups will be afforded by developers and the clients, themselves,
the city has a very important issue in the urbanisation for the low income groups, that should be organ-
ised and directed by the city government. The cost of doing this would be of about 910 million USD
in the period studied, which means that with the current revenues, the city should pay almost all of
its revenues in financing the land reserves and urbanisation costs for the low income groups, which of
course, will not be the case. Another, alternative means for financing the development of land for the
low income groups should be instrumented. Capture of surplus is a possible solution.

Surplus capture, an alternative form of financing urban development.

The surplus generated by expansion in the metropolitan area of Querétaro is in average 47 USD per
square meter, excluding the one coming from the incorporation of services. This surplus, multiplied by
the area of estimated expansion, for each income group is as follows:

168 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Table 6. estimated surplus by expansion ,Querétaro Metropolitan Area 2000-2020

expansion (Ha) Surplus (USD/m2) Value generated (millions of USD)

Low income areas 8506 26 $ 2,197
Mid income areas 2895 33 $ 962
High income areas 2895 31 $ 880
Total $ 4,038

Own elaboration, with Ignacio Kunz Bolanos and with data processed in a model by Carlos Morales Schechinger

A number of reasons exist to justify the capture of a part of this surplus by the society, first, because it
is the society that contributes in the formation of the surplus much more than owners and developers
who have a minimum participation in the formation.
Second, it is reasonable that the costs derived from the decision and profit of expanding the city are
not socialized and in the other hand, be afforded by part of the profit, because those are costs inher-
ent to the expansion. Furthermore, in terms of sustainability, the costs of the expansion model are far
higher in economic, social and environmental terms, the latter two, difficult to quantify but that will
contribute to justify even more the capture of such surplus values.
Surplus capture can be a positive instrument for control and development of the urban realm but
it needs to prove reliability and transparency mainly by establishing a priori the object of a specific
capture, its destination, the participation of every stockholder and the benefits that they will achieve
in the process. Most of all, surplus capture needs to get away from vague abstract planning terms and
get closer to the visualisation of concrete, connective urban projects.

6 A Final remark
We need to find a process that harmonizes both the top-down and the bottom-up approaches to
spatial design in the city. Connectivity oriented urban projects might be this conciliating procedure
for re-building the splintered city of the 20th century and to start constructing the city of a new mil-
lennium.
What makes a system a system, and not a simple collection of elements, are the connections and inter-
actions between its components, as well as the effect these linkages have on its behaviour. Connectiv-
ity is therefore an issue for the agenda of spatial design for the upcoming decades, if we are to advance
to a more sustainable civilisation. If conveniently oriented to connectivity, urban projects can make
true a different possible future available for the city.

Urban projects are catalysts of the configuration of structures and patterns of the city. In the last 30
years, in Querétaro, these catalysts have been oriented to sprawl, since this is a convenient model for
speculation with land.
Is it possible that catalysts could be oriented to connectivity?

Chapter 6: Querétaro 169

 Endnotes
1. 2000 Census. INEGI
2. 2000 Census. INEGI
3. The formal name of the city of Querétaro changed recently to Santiago de Querétaro by a govern-
ment initiative.
4. AGEB stands for Área Geo-Estadística Básica (Geo-Statistical Basic Area).
5. A landholding peasant community or the land owned collectively by the members of such a com-
munity (see glossary).
6. Garza (2000).

170 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

7 A Network of Connective Urban Projects

Design

1. Introduction
This chapter is about design. Urban projects are a product of urban design processes in which many
different disciplines act, and as we have seen in chapter 3, urban projects are concrete interventions
(planned or built) in the urban space.
Urban Projects are defined in this chapter as a visualization of a given urban object, previous to its
materialization or construction. The project is in fact integrated by two main components, the abstract
conceptualization which we call program and the concretion or specifically the form-giving to the
concepts. In the design process a continuous cycle exists between program and form-giving, between
abstract and concrete.
Urban projects can be catalysts oriented to connectivity in the urban realm, being connectivity under-
stood as the potential of connecting, and in our case, the potential of connecting people at the pedes-
trian scale. Connectivity at the pedestrian scale is underpinned by pedestrian mobility (capillarity) and
by the potential of the urban space to act as an information interface (visual permeability). Connectiv-
ity at the pedestrian scale can be related positively to local economic cycles, social mix and environ-
mental conservation.
In Chapter 6, we made an analysis of the area of study, a mid-sized (for Mexican standards) city in Latin
America, with a high rate of growth and still with a high potential of keeping on growing: Querétaro,
where we defined a number of strategic areas in which to intervene with connective urban projects. A
selection between these areas was made to designate one as a test-bed for connective urban projects.
This area is the so called Arco Norte, a former industrial zone with a very low gross density, which has
been reconverting in the last years. We start this chapter by making a deeper description of this area
and then we discuss the projects that are taken as design hypotheses in this work. To introduce the
projects, we first talk about the notion of “networked” programs and projects since this is the base of
the hypothetical content in this chapter: we are not intending to intervene in the city punctually (as in
the urban acupuncture theory) but by the means of a network of projects, connected horizontally in a
plan but at the same time vertically in scales.
When discussing the projects, we start by looking at their program as a whole. We seek to define the
meaning of “connectivity-oriented” as well as the concept of connected scales (this time specifically
in the context of the projects) and how do we expect to follow the rules of coherence translated to
design, that we exposed in chapter 5.
We make then a brief description of the projects: 30 at the interpersonal scale; 10 at the building-scale;
4 at the block-scale and one at the neighborhood scale. Descriptions include the name of the project,
its scale and location and an explanation of the program. The given form that the projects have taken is
relevant here only to the extent of the quality of boundaries they provide to the urban space; therefore
we do not include architectural definition in the images depicting the projects.

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 171

 2. Arco Norte, the area of study
The area selected as a test bed for the projects, Arco Norte, was designated in the 1960s as a mono-
functional zone for heavy industry. It was placed somehow apart from the existing urban tissue (see
numbers 9 and 10 in the 1964 Plano Urbano de Querétaro, in Chapter 6). Today, the area is basically
an archipelago of isolated elements; there are still some industries especially along the Avenida Con-
stitución, the Western section of Querétaro’s first ring-road, but other uses have started to appear
mostly in the form of gated-communities (housing) or strip-malls (commercial), a very typical kind of
development in sprawling cities in Mexico, Latin America and other cities in the world, this being one
of the reasons why we selected this area: it is a sample of Querétaro but at the same time it presents
features found in the development of cities elsewhere.
The plots in the area were designed for large heavy industry and thus are very extensive. In the recon-
version process that the area is going through, the size of the plots has not varied much. Generally it
has been taken as the base for gated condominiums for housing, as in the case of Claustros del Parque
and Bugambilias; large commercial warehouses with parking lots at the front, as in the case of Wal-
mart-Sam’s or Costco; or it has remained vacant land until recently as in the case of Industria del Hierro.
A number of obsolete railway “spurs” already exist, a factor that contributes to the fragmentation of
the area and that has not been taken into account by the planning authorities so far.
This area has been oriented to transportation, it is extremely well-connected to the primary road net-
work of urban highways, Bernardo Quintana Boulevard to the north and east, and to the west Fifth of
February Avenue, the highway towards San Luis Potosí. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, the area has
good access to the principal railway and to its secondary branches, several of which have fallen into
disuse. This defines an urban area with physical connections favoring vehicular accessibility, which has
varied with its contextual conditions: the primary roadways that connect to the main regional roads
are inadequate due to growth in vehicular traffic. This was caused by the addition of housing to the
area and the growth of the encroaching urban expanse, all of which puts accessibility in jeopardy due
to combination of incompatible uses and lack of road restructuring.
It is noteworthy, but logical that currently the area’s gross density is very low in relation to the average
for Querétaro’s urban area. It presents an important opportunity for redensification. The area is struc-
tured as a tree, with good potential for developing a cyclical connective grid if strategic connections
are made. This is a promising opportunity because of the proportionally large amount of vacant land
still found in the area. Pedestrian movement is unstructured for lack of a defined system of walkways.
The road infrastructure is not suited to the activities recently introduced in the area and its surround-
ings; although there are existing connections to principal roadways, the connections themselves are
inefficient.

3. Networked programs
In this section we discuss about one of the two main components of design, regarding our case study:
the program. We look at the program as a whole in the horizontal plan, where the components of a
concept are defined, i.e. form, function and relation; and in the vertical plan in which the different
scales of the project are linked programmatically. Scales linkage is fundamental when conceptualizing
connective design solutions, since the principle of holarchy exists in complex systems. We elaborate
on this while defining what is connectivity oriented and what is the concept of connected scales.
Discussion is taken to the field of the concept itself, the synthesis of components and how are they
networked in order to give form to a connective urban project. Finally in this section we explain how

172 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

the rules of coherence of complex systems (Salingaros) are related to the specific conceptual features
of the designs proposed for the area.

The meaning of connectivity-oriented

This thesis is directly related to the concept of the possible orientation of urban projects to connectiv-
ity. Connectivity in a holistic sense is understood here as mobile and informational connectivity which
are interrelated to economic, social and environmental connectivity. There is the hypothesis that a net-
work of urban projects can connect the fragmented city; there is the assumption that urban projects
can be catalysts of connectivity when devised or programmed to do so.
Design of urban projects is capable of achieving this connectivity if it:
a. is built from scientific principles;
b. considers the city as a phenomenon of organized complexity;
c. uses networks as an approach to address organized complexity;
d. applies networking as a technique to include as much factors into account as possible, for a holistic
response;
e. constructs the common vision of a significant group of stakeholders instead of the singular vision
of one or a few individuals.
The theoretical part of this thesis has included scientific principles of the urban structure as the basis for
the programs of the urban projects; it has stated fragmentation as a problem to be possibly addressed
by urban projects; it has adopted connection as a strategy and finally it has adopted networks as a
scientific way to look at the city as a phenomenon of organized complexity.
At this point, this work applies networking as a technique to take into account as many factors as pos-
sible in the design process, linking spatial planning and design; top-down and bottom-up approaches
(mixed scanning); and networking as well the components of a design program: form, function and
relation.

Aims linked to programs

The first connection between spatial planning and design in urban projects is that of the aims of a
general vision with the program of design. In many cases nowadays, urban projects are conceptualized
only with parts of a general vision, this is, with a partial vision, and this approach has brought spatial
fragmentation to the city as we have seen.
We here take the aims defined for this area in a workshop with local government officials (see chapter
6) and translate it into ten programmatic statements for our proposed network of urban projects1 :

Aim 1 Increase gross density

Development of the city should seek to increase its gross density.
Programmatic statement 1
This network of urban projects should be conceived to increase gross density to levels of ca. 120 – 150
inhabitants per hectare.

Aim 2 Global resources capture

Urban interventions should be attractive to investing from outside the local economy.
Programmatic statement 2
This network of urban projects should be capable of attracting investment from outside the local
economy, not only foreign but national or regional.

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 173

 Aim 3 Surplus capture
Value differentials in land generated by the development of the city, should be at least partially captured
by the city.
Programmatic statement 3
This network of urban projects should include transparent mechanisms to capture surplus values gen-
erated by the projects themselves and to apply these resources in projects of the network at different
scales.

Aim 4 Positive economic cycles

Local and global investment in the city should reach the maximum economic layers in the city.
Programmatic statement 4
This network of urban projects should be devised in a way that fosters positive local economic cycles.

Aim 5 Social mix

Interventions in the city should favour social mixing by eliminating barriers and favouring social connec-
tions.
Programmatic statement 5
This network of urban projects should provide the structure and promote the patterns to sustain social
mix.

Aim 6 Community sense

Interventions in the city should take into account local identity and help to strengthen it.
Programmatic statement 6
This network of urban projects should reflect and enhance local identity while seeking to integrate a
sense of community in front of global networks.

Aim 7 Common vision

A common vision should be built, involving all stakeholders, and tackling social problems.
Programmatic statement 7
This network of urban projects should be devised from the basis of a common vision with techniques
that allow the participation of stakeholders in the process of design.

Aim 8 Pedestrian mobility

As a fundamental factor of urban connectivity, pedestrian mobility should be protected and improved.
Programmatic statement 8
This network of urban projects should increase pedestrian path connectivity.

Aim 9 Vehicular mobility

Interventions in the city should enhance vehicular connectivity.
Programmatic statement 9
This network of urban projects should enhance vehicular connectivity within its area of intervention
and to other areas in the city.

Aim 10 Imageability
Urban space should be clearly readable for the citizens.
Programmatic statement 10
This network of urban projects should be devised to improve imageability within the area intervened
and that of the area as perceived from the outside.

174 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Connected scales
A very important concept in the program is that of connected scales. As we have seen, complex sys-
tems present this feature in their structure that has been called holarchy. For the program of our work,
we have devised to act simultaneously in four different scales, starting by and giving much attention
to the smallest urban scale, the pedestrian scale, which we have called interpersonal, and including
interventions at the building scale, the block scale and the neighborhood scale. In the next section
we will describe the spatial features of the projects. In our connected-scales program, we intend to
conceive the different scales as networked, i.e. one supports the other, as they are interrelated. The
number of projects proposed comes from an inverse-power law: we present 30 module-projects in the
pedestrian scale; 10 module-projects in the building scale; 4 projects in the block scale and one project
in the neighborhood scale.
The connection between scales is given in one way by the specific response to a given programmatic
statement or statements.

Programs at the interpersonal scale

Programs at the interpersonal scale include: bench, kiosk-WC, bus stop, tubular bench, concrete cubes,
fountain, sidewalk bench, cacti park, newsstand, pedestrian pause, food post, street-stair, tree-post,
permeable post, meditation area, round bench, telephone booth, luminous cubes, information cubes,
urban sculpture, fountain (2), internet module, service payment module, bus stop, information (adver-
tisement), urban clock, study node, café-terrace, ASTM, IT center, interstitial garden, barrio locals, and
shoe cleansing post.
Programs at the interpersonal scale, being the more numerous according to the inverse power law are
coherent with the following programmatic statements:

a. Programmatic statement 4
The network of urban projects should be devised in a way that fosters positive local economic cycles.
Small interpersonal scale projects while being networked can help develop the local economy.

b. Programmatic statement 5
The network of urban projects should provide the structure and promote the patterns to sustain social
mix.
As long as strong networks of small-scale nodes exist, patterns for social mix can be applied. Small-
scale nodes provide the city with small-scale public spaces that may sustain social mix and vitality.

c. Programmatic statement 6
The network of urban projects should reflect and enhance local identity while seeking to integrate a sense
of community in front of global networks.
Small-scale nodes while networked, provide a sense of local identity when based upon local patterns.

d. Programmatic statement 8
The network of urban projects should increase pedestrian path connectivity.
This is the key of the network of projects since we consider pedestrian connectivity as fundamental
for the purpose of achieving other kinds of connections. In this work, the network of small-scale nodes
is intended specifically to increase considerably the pedestrian path connectivity. The interpersonal
projects serve as small-scale nodes in the network, and connectivity is constructed upon them.

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 175

 e. Programmatic statement 10
The network of urban projects should be devised to improve imageability within the area intervened and
that of the area as perceived from the outside.
While providing an orienting set of pedestrian nodes, the network of interpersonal projects provides
as well a strong image of the city or an area of the city. This feature helps increase imageability.

Projects at the building scale

Programs proposed at the building scale include: house-study, market, office module, housing, pedes-
trian bridge with commerce, multi-family housing building, personal house, building-bridge-hous-
ing, plaza and a series of 1c+4h (1 commercial + 4 housing levels) buildings. At these scale, programs
comply with the following statements:

a. Programmatic statement 1
The network of urban projects should be conceived to increase gross density to levels of ca. 120 – 150 inhab-
itants per hectare.
Projects at the building scale are most influential in achieving higher gross densities. In our case, many
of the building-scale projects are intended to provide mixed-uses and are devised with a higher inten-
sity than the one normally observed.

b. Programmatic statement 3
The network of urban projects should include transparent mechanisms to capture surplus values gener-
ated by the projects themselves and to apply these resources in projects of the network at different scales.
When considering a higher intensity, the projects provide for an opportunity to generate “more urban
land”. The value of this new land can be captured in part by the project and may also be applied specifi-
cally in projects of a smaller scale.

c. Programmatic statement 4
The network of urban projects should be devised in a way that fosters positive local economic cycles.
Mixed-use programs for the buildings enhance local economic activities and promote local economic
cycles. The program for many of the buildings proposed here follows a growing trend of returning to
retail spaces in the ground floor with offices and / or housing in the upper floors of buildings.

d. Programmatic statement 6
The network of urban projects should reflect and enhance local identity while seeking to integrate a sense
of community in front of global networks.
Although it is not apparent in the projects at the stage in which they are presented in this thesis, their
program includes their correspondence to a form-based code that comes from the study of local pat-
terns.

e. Programmatic statement 8
The network of urban projects should increase pedestrian path connectivity.
The program for the buildings in this thesis includes that they contribute to the formation of continu-
ous permeable boundaries (see chapter 5) in their street front. This measure results in a positive quality
of the roadspace that buildings configure: visual permeability that is an important factor of connectiv-
ity.

176 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

f. Programmatic statement 10
The network of urban projects should be devised to improve imageability within the area intervened and
that of the area as perceived from the outside.
By corresponding to local building patterns and providing a clear and permeable boundary, buildings
can contribute to the imageability of urban space. In general, the program for the buildings includes
besides of the use of local formal patterns, the use wholly or at least partially, of local natural materi-
als.

Programs at the block scale

Programs at the block scale include: Plaza del Parque, a medium size typical American mall with a sur-
rounding parking lot; the Sam’s-Walmart area, still with some light industry, now mixed with other uses
as restaurants and wine stores; the Industria del Hierro lot, a large urban vacant formerly a heavy steel
industry and a linear park in the Epigmenio Gonzalez avenue. At this scale, the programs comply with
the following statements:

a. Programmatic statement 1
The network of urban projects should be conceived to increase gross density to levels of ca. 120 – 150 inhab-
itants per hectare.
Three of the four programs at this scale are directed to increase gross density, as urban infill develop-
ments.

b. Programmatic statement 2
The network of urban projects should be capable of attracting investment from outside the local econ-
omy.
Three of the four projects, especially Plaza del Parque and Sam’s-Walmart are capable of attracting
non-local investments because of their economic potential. Industria del Hierro is now being inter-
vened by a large corporate telephonic group with a typical corporate isolated park with a non-local
investment. However, the proposed program includes an infill development that could have attracted
other kind of non-local investment with a mixed-use development. Comparisons of connectivities pro-
vided by the proposed and actually built programs are shown in chapter 8.

c. Programmatic statement 3
The network of urban projects should include transparent mechanisms to capture surplus values gener-
ated by the projects themselves and to apply these resources in projects of the network at different scales.
Two of the four programs at this scale are capable of generating a surplus value that might be partially
captured by the city. The Sam’s-Walmart and the Plaza del Parque programs could very well capture
enough resources to develop the whole network of projects at the four scales.

d. Programmatic statement 5
The network of urban projects should provide the structure and promote the patterns to sustain social
mix.
The network of projects for the area provides of currently inexistent public spaces. The difference can
be assessed by GIS. A sample of this assessment is provided in chapter 8.

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 177

 e. Programmatic statement 7
The network of urban projects should be devised from the basis of a common vision with techniques that
allow the participation of stakeholders in the process of design.
The network of projects devised for the Arco Norte area is part of a series of strategic projects included
in the official urban plans. A common vision could be developed by participation of the stakeholders
(in an open system) being the case.

f. Programmatic statement 8
The network of urban projects should increase pedestrian path connectivity.
The network of programs at this scale is devised to enhance mainly pedestrian connectivity. Connec-
tivity is assessed before and after the interventions in chapter 8.

g. Programmatic statement 9
The network of urban projects should enhance vehicular connectivity within its area of intervention and
to other areas in the city.
Not being a priority of the program, the network of projects devised is thought to enhance vehicular
connectivity as a second step after pedestrian connectivity. Connections at the smallest scale are taken
care of first; however, the network of programs is quite capable of providing an enhanced vehicular
connectivity.

Program at the neighbourhood scale

There is only one kind of program proposed at the neighbourhood scale: a bridge to connect the two
large portions of urban tissue separated by Bernardo Quintana, the urban motorway of the first ring in
Querétaro, much as in the case of the urban projects presented in chapter 3. The program proposed
is a transversal urban project. This bridge program is part of a network of pedestrian connections that
is intended to reweave the urban fabric, in many “crossing points” of the mobility infrastructure, as
the diagram on the right shows. Moreover, the network of projects at this scale is intended to provide
a connective pedestrian network with high capillarity and high visual permeability. At this scale, the
program complies with most of the programmatic statements:

a. Programmatic statement 1
The network of urban projects should be conceived to increase gross density to levels of ca. 120 – 150 inhab-
itants per hectare.
The program at this scale does not have direct incidence in the density increase; however it provides
the whole structure with connectivity conditions that correspond to patterns of high density.

b. Programmatic statement 2
The network of urban projects should be capable of attracting investment from outside the local econ-
omy.
A program such as the one proposed at the neighbourhood scale, the transversal bridge is capable of
attracting investment from non-local sources.

c. Programmatic statement 3
The network of urban projects should include transparent mechanisms to capture surplus values gener-
ated by the projects themselves and to apply these resources in projects of the network at different scales.
The program is a way of generating new land and thus new land values in a highly valued area. Gen-
erally, land at the sides of an important motor-way in cities has become more valuable because of

178 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

its accessibility. The program takes advantage of this situation and provides a good opportunity of
capturing resources.

d. Programmatic statement 4
The network of urban projects should be devised in a way that fosters positive local economic cycles.
A transversal bridge program over a motorway fosters positive local economic cycles as long as it
increases connectivity and provides the city with new opportunities of developing small-local com-
merce.

e. Programmatic statement 5
The network of urban projects should provide the structure and promote the patterns to sustain social
mix.
As stated above, a pedestrian transversal bridge provides structure and promotes patterns of social
mix. It provides new public lively spaces to the city. Because of its accessibility at the smallest (the
pedestrian) scale and the connections it provides with areas of different social classes, it provides the
city with new opportunities to develop social mix.

f. Programmatic statement 6
The network of urban projects should reflect and enhance local identity while seeking to integrate a sense
of community in front of global networks.
When devised with the use of local patterns, programs like this can reflect and enhance local identity.
A vision of the pedestrian bridge project based on patterns of pedestrian streets that the city has had
for centuries provides this identity, as in the case of La Primavera (right), a greenfill development in a
Querétaro’s nearby city that was designed by DPZ architects based upon local patterns and develop-
ing a form-based code. Using patterns to base design is way to ensure a reflection of local identity.

g. Programmatic statement 7
The network of urban projects should be devised from the basis of a common vision with techniques that
allow the participation of stakeholders in the process of design.
A program of the size of the one proposed for this scale involves a large number of stakeholders.
Workshop techniques are to be used to develop a common vision. The new urbanist technique, the
“charette” is used effectively to involve the stakeholders and to develop a product that provides a
sense of belonging to everyone.

h. Programmatic statement 8
The network of urban projects should increase pedestrian path connectivity.
Again, this is the key statement in a network of projects as the one proposed and particularly of the
program of the pedestrian transversal bridge at this scale. It definitely is devised to increase pedestrian
path connectivity by generating a new “layer” in which pedestrian connections are again possible in
the city.

i. Programmatic statement 9
The network of urban projects should enhance vehicular connectivity within its area of intervention and
to other areas in the city.
It is also a fundamental part of the program of the pedestrian transversal bridge, to enhance connec-
tivity at the vehicular level. This does not mean to develop more space for the car. In this case, vehicular
connectivity is enhanced by increasing the capacity and quality of urban public transport by introduc-

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 179

 ing a light railway transport and of course, by making the geometric adaptations and improvements to
the already existing vehicular structure.

j. Programmatic statement 10
The network of urban projects should be devised to improve imageability within the area intervened and
that of the area as perceived from the outside.
Programs like the pedestrian transversal bridge certainly improve the imageability of a city. The Ponte
Vecchio is a major landmark in a city that has enormous cultural treasures to show. It competes very
well as a landmark with other very famous urban spaces and contributes in a good measure to the
imageability of Florence.

Playing with rules of coherence

Goals, aims, conditions and requirements are set in a design process in the program. In fact, a good
program synthesizes the quantity and quality of the components and the whole first speaking concep-
tually. It is in the program where the designer can set the conditions that will later define the materi-
alization or concretion of the design itself. Thus, it is important at this point to relate the conditions of
our programs with a set of rules of coherence, part of the complex systems theory studied in chapter
5, as a set of reference-rules for design. We will now explain the considerations we have made in our
programs concerning the rules of coherence and their corresponding outcomes as programmatic con-
ditions.

• Rule 1. Couplings: Strongly-coupled elements on the same scale form a module. There should be
no unconnected elements inside a module.

Programs are intended to couple from the smallest scales. In the pedestrian scale, the projects are
nodes that connect; at the building scale, the programs present convenient contrast within them (see
Rule 2. Diversity as well); at the block scale the projects are programmed to couple with the urban space
and at the neighborhood scale, the project of a transversal bridge is a connector in itself, an instrument
for coupling elements of urban space. Coupling is the essence of the program against urban fragmen-
tation, which is a crucial problem in the city of today, pointed out and attacked in this thesis.

• Rule 2. Diversity: Similar elements do not couple. A critical diversity of different elements is needed
because some will catalyze couplings between others.

As we mentioned in chapter 5, polarity comes from the coupling rule and it means that nodes of the
same sign are repelled; nodes of different sign are attracted to each other.
We have based the programmatic outcome of this rule in providing as much diversity as possible in
the particular programs of the network of urban projects. We have also sought to generate polarity by
specifically programming a mix of uses in the program of the buildings, and at the block and neighbor-
hood scale. Designated potential polarity is one of the keys to achieving complexity.

• Rule 3. Boundaries: Different modules couple via their boundary elements. Connections form
between modules, and not between their internal elements.

180 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Boundaries are the skin of the body of elements and it is through the skin that bodies interchange mate-
rial and information. By looking at permeability as a variable, we can observe and assess the potential
that elements in an urban network have to connect to other elements in a given space. The perme-
ability of an urban space determines, connected to other variables, the connectivity that such urban
space can hold. Particular emphasis has been put into connecting the programs between themselves
or with the urban space by the use of permeable boundaries. Care has been taken as well in organizing
modules at different scales “wrapped” by their corresponding permeable boundaries. This can be seen
for example in the projects at the edge of Sam’s-Walmart or Plaza del Parque and Industria del Hierro
at the block scale and in the projects for buildings in their perimeters (facades). Permeable boundaries
give coherence to the modules and at the same time allow their connection to other programs.

• Rule 4. Forces: Interactions are naturally strongest on the smallest scale, and weakest on the larg-
est scale. Reversing them generates pathologies.

Interactions or connections are strongest in the smallest scales, having to do with capillarity in a net-
work. The capilar flow is of maximum strength and of minimum size in a complex system. In the urban
web, the capilar flow corresponds to the smallest urban scale, the pedestrian or interpersonal scale,
where a maximum of interactions occur. This rule sets the base of the program of the whole network
of projects. Connections are strongest in the smallest scale, where we have sought out to program the
higher quantity and quality of connections, at the pedestrian scale that is the one considered to be the
smallest in the urban realm. We have put emphasis in programming more capillarity in the smallest
scales. Capillarity is here defined as the potential for access (accessibility) to and from the boundaries
of a given urban space. Capillarity is related mostly with pedestrian accessibility. Rule 4 Forces, explains
why we have given much importance to the “small” connectors: they are fundamental in achieving
connectivity. In our programs, the importance of the smaller scale is enhanced, but speaking more
of the whole of this thesis, the transversal connection has been privileged over the longitudinal (see
chapter 3).

• Rule 5. Organization: Long-range forces create the large scale from well-defined structure on the
smaller scales. Alignment does not establish, but can destroy short-range couplings.

This rule is indirectly related to the particular study in this thesis of the fragmentation by overimposition
of infrastructure that breaks the “organization” of the system, the urban tissue in our case. Again, as we
stated in chapter 3, the organization patterns followed in the programs for the projects of this thesis is
a combination of transversal and longitudinal projects. Design has to take into account both kinds of
connections: the former to the smaller scales, which is here privileged to balance the currently existing
situation in the city, which enhances mostly longitudinal connections to the larger scales. Allowing
complexity to organize implies programming both transversal and longitudinal connections.

• Rule 6. Hierarchy: A system’s components assemble progressively from small to large. This proc-
ess generates linked units defined on many distinct scales.

As we have seen in these last three chapters, the connection of scales of the elements is of vital impor-
tance to a complex system. We have already adopted the term “holarchy” to substitute hierarchy, to
refer to the progression of order that a complex structure has, and in our case, that an organized com-

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 181

 plexity space presents. If we are to allow and foster complexity to organize, we need to think in terms
of holarchy, an order following a sequence from the small to the large. This is the ordering of the pro-
grams for the network of projects in this thesis. The interpersonal projects have been considered first
and then, progressively, the following scales have been programmed. However, we have to bear in
mind that the first scale that we have thought of has been the neighborhood scale, as in the transversal
projects described in chapter 3. The difference this time is that we have now considered other scales
for connective projects at the same time and not isolated. We have programmed the progression of
scales in terms of networks as well.

• Rule 7. Interdependence: Elements and modules on different scales do not depend on each
other in a symmetric manner: a higher scale requires all lower scales, but not vice versa.

This rule is about the possibility of emergence. Emergence is a feature of living, complex systems, as
cities are (Jacobs, Alexander, Johnson, Salingaros, Capra, et al.). If the structures in a system do not
allow interdependence, emergence cannot occur and life fails to exist. In the vision we had formerly
(chapter 3) we were thinking of the transversal projects as punctual interventions to connect the urban
space, but one of the fundamental lessons learned in the process of this research (that was detonated
by the question by Nikos Salingaros: “why don’t you start by smaller scales?”) is the lesson of interde-
pendence of scales as the rule says, not in a symmetric way but in a way that the large scales depend
on the smaller. The fact that we have programmed a high number of small-scale projects goes in the
direction of this rule. We are trying to program interdependence constructed from small to large.

• Rule 8. Decomposition: A coherent system cannot be completely decomposed into constituent

parts. There exist much non-equivalent decomposition based on different types of units.

Complex systems are to be understood in a holistic or integrative manner. Networks can provide a tool
to advance in this understanding. The program for the network of projects has been thought as a net-
work with connections between at least four scales; it takes into account a whole instead of a number
of isolated different projects. However we should point out that being possible that other smaller and
larger scale to be included, we have set a limitation for the sake of the control of the research.

4. Networked projects
In this section we present a brief visualization of the programs described in section 3. This visualization
intends by no means to be a final project; it is rather a series of design exercises that has been devel-
oped in a number of workshops with students of graduate and undergraduate levels in Querétaro. All
the exercises were made after theoretical briefing about complex systems and their properties (espe-
cially holarchy); concepts on fragmentation and connection and a common vision on urban pedestrian
connectivity. The exercises represent a version of the possible future for the urban structure compo-
nents proposed as nodes and links in the suggested network. The projects are presented again by
scales, starting at the smallest or extra-small urban project scale (XSUP) up to the neighborhood scale
projects or large urban projects (LUP) proposed. A brief description of the projects that includes a
given number in a list, name, realm, scale and location is accompanied by a few corresponding images
to give an idea of how the programs could be first materialized by design and later by construction.
Descriptions have been proposed by the students-authors of the projects2 .

182 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Projects at the interpersonal scale (XSUP: 3 – 10 m)

1. Seats/cubes of concrete (Ill. 136)

Street furniture
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Urban parks and linear parks
This street furniture can be used in bus stops. This project has the intention to provide a place of dis-
traction and rest in given points in the urban strips. It also provides protection from rain and sun.
Because of its simple design it can integrate itself to the environment and to help building urban iden-
tity in the neighborhood where it will be located. These seats are an interaction point between the
users and their activities (ACG, NHA, MGL).

Illustration 136. Seats/cubes of con-

crete. Rendering by Nuria Hernández
Amador

2. Bathroom fittings and commerce module. (Ill. 137)

Services
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Residual spaces
This project has the intention to use residual urban spaces. It is conformed by a commercial space that
can be a flower shop, a gift shop, a news stand, a food stand, etc.; and a module of bathroom fittings.
This module provides a service and has a certain level of attractivity because of the commerce space
(NHA).

Illustration 137. Bathroom fittings and

commerce module. Rendering by Nuria
Hernández Amador

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 183

 3 and 24. Bus stops (Ill. 138, 139)
Urban furniture
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Public vehicular traffic zones.
Bus stops are the perfect element to create unity and urban identity in different scales in neighbor-
hoods, avenues or a city.
These proposals of bus stops take into account some characteristics:
- Ergonomics: Comfort for the user in every detail.
- Coherence with the context: The design of the bus stop has to stand out but not to discuss with the
environment.
The materials that they are made of have to be compatible with the surroundings.
- Sustainability: Street furniture is expensive, but bus stops have the quality to be publicity spaces
for vehicle users and for pedestrians waiting for the bus.
Publicity can be the option to finance this kind of furniture (ACG, NHA, MGL).

Illustration 138. Bus stop. Rendering by

Nuria Hernández Amador

Illustration 139. Bus stop. Rendering by

Nuria Hernández Amador

4,5,7 and 16. Benches (Ill. 140, 141, 142, 143)

Urban furniture.
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Public thoroughfare
Benches are important furniture in the urban configuration because they provide to the pedestri-
ans a place to rest, observe the urban landscape or wait comfortably, although it might be only for a
moment. For their suitable operation and success, benches must be located in shaded places, under a
tree or under canopies spaces.

184 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

It is also recommended that they are located near zones of services, kiosks or stores or in open public
spaces.
The benches reactivate places where they are located because they invite people to stay more time in
plazas, sidewalks or parks.
This makes that open spaces become nodes of active coexistence, where pedestrians can develop
activities or social type, helping to the creation of a propitious atmosphere for the expression of ideas
and the interchange of opinions, which fortifies the internal communication of a certain social group
(ACG, NHA, MGL).

Illustration 140. Benches. Rendering

by Nuria Hernández Amador

Illustration 141. Benches. Rendering

by Nuria Hernández Amador

Illustration 142. Benches. Rendering

by Nuria Hernández Amador

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 185

 Illustration 143. Benches. Rendering
by Nuria Hernández Amador

6 and 21. Fountains (Ill. 144, 145)

Something sudden in the middle
Interpersonal (XSUP)
Location: Squares and linear parks.
Fountains refresh and humidify the environment and moreover, in squares and parks they give identity
to the space.
In general, fountains have to be located in the middle of the pedestrian flow that is not always the
geometric center of the open space. This gives them some quality of attractivity as a rest point in the
urban environment. These specific proposals give users beside a fountain, a place to sit and talk, read
the news paper or just observe the context (NHA, MGL).

Illustration 144. Fountains. Rendering

by Nuria Hernández Amador

Illustration 145. Fountains. Rendering

by Nuria Hernández Amador

186 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

8. Cacti park (Ill. 146)
Garden modules
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Parks and squares.
Querétaro is characterized by the large number of species of cactus that live in the territory. Lamenta-
bly most of the people don’t know these species, and for consequence they don’t care about them and
some of them are in danger of extinction.
The introduction of these vegetal species in the urban context is made by in containers that can be
located in existing squares and parks, making possible that people know these plants, besides it pro-
vides another point of attraction in the place they are installed or give life to the space they are located
in (NHA).

Illustration 146. Cacti park. Rendering

by Nuria Hernández Amador

9. Magazine stand (Ill. 147)

Store and lecture place.
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Parks, squares and public gardens.
There are a lot of magazine stands on the streets. They are very concurred throughout the day. They
have an important flow of people that is why we have thought about taking advantage of this quality
and increase the time that people stay in thees nodes of activity. With this aim, the project includes,
in addition to the stand of books, magazines and newspapers, urban furniture that allows people to
pause in these nodes.
These spaces with benches and shadow become urban pauses and meeting points, without loosing
the essence of a magazine stand (NHA).

Illustration 147. Magazine stand. Ren-

dering by Nuria Hernández Amador

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 187

 10 and 13. Pedestrian pause (Ill. 148, 149)
Urban furniture.
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Wide sidewalks.
This project is intended to provide for a little rest in the pedestrian realm. In the cities, great stretches
exist that the pedestrians are forced to cross; in order that their long walk is a little nicer we have
thought about a type of urban furniture in which people can lean for a while to take a pause. These
pedestrian pauses are located in shaded sites, or in sidewalks hoisted or protected by buildings of
considerable height.
Thus, these pedestrian pauses can be part of the urban furniture integrating themselves like useful
urban sculptures throughout pedestrian sidewalks they usually lack life (NHA).

Illustration 148. Pedestrian pause.

Rendering by Nuria Hernández
Amador

Illustration 149. Pedestrian pause.

Rendering by Nuria Hernández
Amador

11 and 32. Food stand (Ill. 150, 151)

Urban furniture / services.
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Wide sidewalks, linear parks, interdistrict squares.
We have a strong tradition in Mexico on informal commerce.
It’s conformed mainly by food stands and they are located in spaces of internal public transit, as streets,
squares of neighborhoods although they also are in the public thoroughfare, places are not very apt
in a matter of hygiene.
With the proposal of conserving this type of commerce that is an important source of income for great
part of the population, and to legalize and improve the condition in which these retailers toil, we have
thought about urban furniture that satisfies these necessities offering a suitable place of work for the
retailers and consumers.

188 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

The furniture has the possibility of bending while it is not in use. These projects, besides of providing a
service, will offer better urban aspect and will be a node of attractivity in the places in which they are
located (ACG, NHA, MGL).

Illustration 150. Food stand. Render-

ing by Nuria Hernández Amador

Illustration 151. Food stand. Render-

ing by Nuria Hernández Amador

12. Street stairs (Ill. 152)

Something sudden in the middle
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Public squares.
The proposal is based on creating a propitious space for the encounter and leisure. The street stairs are
located in the squares, not indeed in the geometric center of this one but in the nodes of greater circu-
lation so they may become a point of social meeting in the zone. This way, the urban life is promoted
and reactivated turning the public square a center of activity and energy.
The street stairs become a sculpture able to lodge in its steps all the people that wants to seat to talk
comfortably and enjoy the circulation of other pedestrians (NHA).

Illustration 152. Street stairs. Render-

ing by Nuria Hernández Amador

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 189

 14. Permeable stand (Ill. 153)
Urban furniture
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Perimeter walls.
The sprouting and increase of closed housing divisions that become great hermetic, closed and iso-
lated blocks from the rest of the city, have caused problems of connectivity talking in terms of urban
flow because they block pedestrian natural flow that happens in open neighborhoods, and also con-
vert borders in dangerous zones for the pedestrians.
This project is a proposal for breaking barriers. It consists in commerce stands that have the possibility
of offering service to both flanks of the barrier. This project is not only focused to the perimeter walls
of closed neighborhoods; it is also useful to open any type of barriers, like long grates around parks,
training centers, etc.
Thus, the community that lives inside the wall has access to common services, like small stores of
supermarket, stores and laundries, providing the external mixture of ground uses.
The pedestrians walking on the sidewalk outside the barrier will have access to the services and also
will be able to circulate safety on pleasant perimeters of the old immense and closed blocks (NHA).

Illustration 153. Permeable stand. Ren-

dering by Nuria Hernández Amador

17. Public telephone (Ill. 154)

Urban furniture
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Public thoroughfare.
The telephone booths are an excellent site to locate publicity, since by their location they are nodes
of great visibility and to which great number of people go. We want to emphasize this double use
through the placement of banks of delay within houses in which the publicity is located.
The booths are designed so that the user feels a little more protecting of the surrounding so that the
communication activity for which specifically the furniture is designed, can be done with comfort and
is a pleasant experience (ACG, MGL).

190 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Illustration 154. Public telephone. Ren-
dering by Nuria Hernández Amador

18. Luminous box (Ill. 155)

Urban furniture
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Public squares an gardens.
We have considered the creation of spaces of relaxation and meditation in public urban spaces. The
relaxation modules are located in squares, gardens and wide sidewalks where the pedestrian crossings
are. The project consists of light boxes closed for individual use that have certain degree of perme-
ability between the interior and the outside causing an atmosphere of balance in which the user can
observe and assimilate the contrast between the internal and external activity (MGL).

Illustration 155. Luminous box. Ren-

dering by Nuria Hernández Amador

19 and 30. Information boxes (Ill. 156,157)

Urban furniture
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Walking seats and squares.
Querétaro is a rich city in terms of tourism and the employee resources that tourism generates.
In order to promote this beneficial activity in many senses for the development of the City, this project
tries to impel and to disclose on greater scale the tourist destinies; archaeological zones, location of
commercial centers, extreme sports, natural resources, festivities, celebrations and cultural events like
art exhibitions, cinema and theater exhibitions.
The project consists of installed boxes in different points of the city, especially in walking seats and,
where tourists can consult with qualified personnel different recreational, sport and cultural options
that the city offers them (MGL).

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 191

 Illustration 156. Information boxes.
Rendering by Nuria Hernández
Amador

Illustration 157. Information boxes.

Rendering by Nuria Hernández
Amador

20. Urban sculptures (Ill. 158)

Something sudden in the middle
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Public squares, gardens.
Within the urban life there are elements that by their location and treatment of forms become emblem
and icon of the city in where they are located, so is the case of the urban sculptures.
The urban sculptures must aim feed the group identity of the pedestrians who walk by the streets
of the city, that is to say, that its function is mainly visual. Commonly, they are located in traffic zones
where people can stop to observe.
There are antecedents that urban sculptures that are located in public gardens and plazas, produce in
the neighbors certain feelings of belonging and identity (ACG, NHA, MGL).

Illustration 158. Urban sculptures.

Rendering by Nuria Hernández
Amador

192 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

22. Internet module (Ill. 159)
Urban furniture / service.
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Public squares, public thoroughfare.
Today more than ever the communication via Internet is part of daily life of almost all citizens and
this necessity has extended to all the spheres of our social life, including the life in the public urban
spaces.
As undeniable phenomenon of the social development we set the establishment of Internet mod-
ules, in which communication, publicity and relaxation are part of the same language, being part of a
network of nodes that are able to attract several tens of pedestrians, making their walks through the
public thoroughfare an activity (MGL).

Illustration 159. Internet module. Ren-

dering by Nuria Hernández Amador

23 and 29. Automatic service teller machines (ASTM) (Ill. 160, 161)
Urban furniture and services
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Public thoroughfare.
The accelerated rate of life that characterizes our time requires of services that are accessible and effi-
cient, that they do not delay us in our activities. To solve this we propose the establishment of auto-
matic centers of payment of services, as water, gas, light, cable, telephone, internet, etc.
This way, it is possible to pay services at any time, without the need of moving specifically to the diverse
sites to make the payments after long rows of delay (ACG, MGL).

Illustration 160. Automatic service

teller machines (ASTM) Rendering by
Nuria Hernández Amador

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 193

 Illustration 161. Automatic service
teller machines (ASTM) Rendering by
Nuria Hernández Amador

25. Information plaza (Ill. 162)

Urban furniture
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Plazas
Located in public plazas, the project has the intention to be a center of attraction for the pedestrians
who are passing by, acting like an informative trap of cultural events, promotion of the city, relaxation
sites, etc. At the same time, it causes the interaction between pedestrians and reactivates the node
with a passive activity that generates life in plazas that by their little attractivity were dead (MGL).

Illustration 162. Information plaza.

Rendering by Nuria Hernández
Amador

26. Urban clock (Ill. 163)

Urban furniture
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Residual spaces or sub-used lands (ridges).
Within the urban furniture there is a classic element, the Urban Clock. The Urban Clock will be inserted
in residual spaces or sub-used land of the urban plot, obtaining the use and rehabilitation of low-activ-
ity nodes. Clock design is not limited to a particular typology (MGL).

194 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Illustration 163. Urban clock. Render-
ing by Nuria Hernández Amador

28. Café terrace (Ill. 164)

Commercial corridors
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Commercial corridors.
Following Christopher Alexander’s (1977) patterns, the coffee terrace is located in pedestrian paths
or avenues and streets of vehicular transit. These cafeterias are helpful to enrich the urban landscape,
because they provide very interesting places where people can seat to eat, take a coffee, read, chat
with their friends or simply sit to observe the movement of pedestrians.
Pedestrians also enjoy this kind of place, because it promotes a different space reference compared
with which they usually run into in a common and current street (ACG).

Illustration 164. Café terrace. Render-

ing by Nuria Hernández Amador

31. Inter-buildings garden (Ill. 165)

Open spaces
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Inter-district spaces
This typology of garden talks about small, open spaces with grass and trees, located between build-
ings. In this way, pedestrian permeability between the buildings is created rehabilitating their dead
surroundings.
It is tried that these gardens not only serve like communication and transition towards different places,
but that serve like centers of gravity because of the existence of small scale nodes, like banks, and kids
games, where people can spend some time (ACG).

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 195

 Illustration 165. Inter-buildings
garden. Rendering by Nuria Hernán-
dez Amador

33. Shoe shining module (Ill. 166)

Service
Interpersonal scale (XSUP)
Location: Public routes, plazas, and streets.
The shoe shinning module is a classic service within the urban life in Mexican plazas. They are usually
bounded to other nodes of activity like magazine stands.
Shoe shiners attract people to sit to read the newspaper, talk to other people that also enjoy the serv-
ice or observe the urban surroundings while the shoe shiner cleans their shoes.
This project consists in the redesign of the shoe shining module to make it more functional and com-
fortable, adding benches so that the relatives of the client can seat to wait. The module has to be pre-
pared to receive several clients that can talk while the service is carried out (ACG).

Illustration 166. Shoe shining module.

Rendering by Nuria Hernández
Amador

Projects at the building scale (SUP: 10 – 30 m)

1. Home – studio (Ill. 167)

House room module.
Building scale (SUP)
Location: Urban plot
This project is just a conceptual proposal of a type of house room. It consists of constructing in a single
space, the minimum indispensable to live, but not in a traditional way, but on the contemporary one,
in whom it is only needed to have a house to sleep, to make basic meals, to clean up, to rest and work.
The social necessities can be covered in other nodes of activity and thus to interact with other people.
It is tried that the user of this house has a work in which the Internet is the mass media, thus will not

196 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

have to be transferred to another place of work. Thus people can live and work in the same place and
interact outside with other people. The concept of these modules is that they can be unique or to form
towers of department buildings (MGL).

Illustration 167. Home - studio. Ren-

dering by Nuria Hernández Amador

2. Market (Ill. 168)

Module of commerce
Building scale (SUP)
Location: Urban plot
The disorganized commerce is a problem in many cities in México. As people don’t have a fixed work,
they look for subsistence and find informal commerce that is badly organized causes bad urban image,
dirt and problems of traffic. Nevertheless, this type of commerce is a node of activity with a high degree
of attractivity. People who live near these places, leave their house with no need to use the automobile
and walk in calm through commercial corridors to satisfy some necessities.
It is a way to create job sources and to give life to the solely habitational neighborhoods. This type
of spaces can cause the mixture of uses that is necessary for the life and healthy activity of the users
(MGL).

Illustration 168. Market. Rendering by

Nuria Hernández Amador

3. Working modules (Ill. 169)

Offices
Building scale (SUP)
Location: Urban plot.
This also is a conceptual proposal. It consists mainly of equipping micro-enterprises with working
spaces near or in housing zones. These are small modules that include only the necessary spaces of an
office and they can be built in any land within a habitational zone, or in the front part of the houses,

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 197

 like a place to rent or work. These modules try to provoke mixture of uses and attractivity between the
habitational nodes (MGL).

Illustration 169. Working modules.

Rendering by Nuria Hernández
Amador

4. Housing (Ill. 170, 171)

Houses
Building scale (SUP)
Location: Urban plot.
The satisfaction of a primary necessity like a house is a problem which the cities of today face. In a
country like México, where people have little acquisition capacity, it can be difficult to own a house.
This project is a proposal for self-construction houses with a worthy design and low cost that could be
subsidized by the government or be acquired through hypothecating credits.
The main propose of this concept of house is to make worthy the nowadays called “pies de casa”, to
help the most unprotected sector of the society.
The characteristics of this module of house force the constructors to urbanize lands with hidden facili-
ties, because these houses would have the connections ready to link to networks of services as water,
electricity and sewage (ACG, NHA, MGL).

Illustration 170. Housing. Rendering

by Nuria Hernández Amador

198 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Illustration 171. Housing. Rendering
by Nuria Hernández Amador

5. Pedestrian bridges with commerce (Ill. 172)

Pedestrian steps with cross circulation.
Building scale (SUP)
Location: Primary avenues and streets.
The avenues and wide streets in the cities have become barriers that prevent pedestrians to have easy
access within the city; this forces people to use the automobile to cover very short distances that are
impossible to walk.
On the other hand, the pedestrian bridges are characterized for being dirty and dangerous because
they don’t have a constant flow of pedestrians and they cause dark corners of delinquency and refuge
of homeless people.
This project is based on an existing concept of pedestrian bridges made with metallic structures that
are transparent and light. We considered that these bridges can be complemented with small com-
mercial modules that cause constant flow of people among them. Thus, a pedestrian is able to cross a
barrier in a safe way and simultaneously satisfy some necessity in the passage (NHA).

Illustration 172. Pedestrian bridges

with commerce. Rendering by Nuria
Hernández Amador

6. Building – bridge – room (Ill. 173)

Pedestrian steps and house room.
Building scale (SUP)
Location: Primary avenues and streets.
With this project we tried to provide homeless people with a place to live. The concept of this project
consists in the construction of a pedestrian bridge that includes one or several modules of small
houses, to make worthy the life of some homeless people.
These houses would have on their walls the publicity that is placed normally in pedestrian bridges,
which would help to pay the cost of construction and maintenance (MGL).

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 199

 Illustration 173. Building - bridge -
room. Rendering by Nuria Hernández
Amador

7. Squares – nodes (Ill. 174)

Public spaces with activity and attractivity.
Building scale (SUP)
Location: Interdistrict spaces and plazas.
Public plazas must be surrounded by activities that cause the flow of people, and must have element
like fountains, trees, steps, some public or services building and outdoors activities, among others
(ACG).

Illustration 174. Squares - nodes. Ren-

dering by Nuria Hernández Amador

8. 1 Service 4 Homes (Ill. 175)

Mixed uses buildings.
Building scale (SUP)
Location: Block edges.
The mixed uses buildings are a basic and simple urban concept that has proven to be effective in many
important cities around the world.
The edges of big blocks sometimes become dangerous because they don’t have flow of pedestrians
or vehicles.
With this project, a solution to this problem is set out. The buildings are formed by a commercial
ground floor and three or four levels of house room or departments with a pedestrian porch to give
service and security to pedestrians when they cross the commercial corridor.
With this pedestrian and visual permeability, the edges of big blocks turn to be a safe place to walk,
because they are full of people and at night, the flow of people is composed by the inhabitants of the
upper levels. In this way, this kind of spaces never loses vitality or security.
In addition, this type of buildings helps to increase density in the currently urban empty spaces in the
cities (ACG, NHA, MGL).

200 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Illustration 175. 1 service 4 homes.
Rendering by Nuria Hernández
Amador

Projects at the block scale (MUP: 30 - 100 m)

1. Plaza del Parque (Ill. 176)

Densification Project in a retail area
Block scale (MUP)
Location: Arco Norte, Querétaro
This zone is a large area with a commercial center that resembles an island in the middle of a parking
lot. The edge of this zone does not have a facade that delimits and gives urban personality to it; two
super-market give a poor urban image. Most of the land is used like a parking lot that is a dangerous
site for pedestrians, besides it gives a gray image to the set. This set is flanked by a fast route of vehicu-
lar circulation, a sub-used linear park and pieces of land surrounded by streets of high vehicular flow
that are impossible to walk through.
Proposal: We propose in this zone a strip of mixed uses buildings that surround the area and give use to
the gray parking lots to redensify the zone, as well as services modules and the respect to the existing
commercial center, to promote the mixture of uses. Also it is set out to increase the vitality of the linear
park and the use of an isolated public square to allow pedestrians to cross between the two existing
commercial zones through a pedestrian bridge and a green open space in its inferior part, at the level
of the street (NHA).

Illustration 176. Plaza del Parque. Ren-

dering by Nuria Hernández Amador

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 201

 2. Jacarandas (Ill. 177, 178)
Pedestrian and visual permeability.
Block scale (MUP)
Location: Arco Norte, Querétaro
Jacarandas is a residential subdivision fenced totally and closed to any external person. Its only access
is a monitoring booth that works like pedestrian and vehicular entrance. The edge that forms the wall
of this zone causes the isolation of the residential division of the context, becomes aggressive with it
and becomes dangerous for the external pedestrians because it is solitary, without people flow and
only surrounded by avenues and wide streets that become pedestrian barriers.
Proposal: We propose the open dissolution of the urban barrier that the wall creates with commerce
modules which give service to both sides of the barrier, as well as the location of small plazas and parks
that allow the interaction of both ambient, the external and the internal one of the Jacarandas subdivi-
sion (NHA).

Illustration 177. Jacarandas. Render-

ing by Nuria Hernández Amador

Illustration 178. Jacarandas. Render-

ing by Nuria Hernández Amador

3. Light industry zone (Ill. 179)

Densification project
Block scale (MUP)
Location: Arco Norte, Querétaro
This zone is composed by large retail buildings that cause urban emptiness with their parking lots.
There is no mixture of uses or social coexistence. Also small buildings of light industry exist, without
frequent use and with a great tendency to disappear. It has turned to be an inactive zone without
green areas.
Proposal: In this zone the project consists basically in re-densifying the land by stages and undoing
little by little the elements that now configure it.

202 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

We set out four different typologies of constructions of mixed uses, intermediate streets that allow
connectivity and balance between the vehicle and the pedestrian (MGL).
Each block of this area has intermediate green areas and different typologies of houses to provoke
identity of each family and an urban image with ordered diversity.

Illustration 179. Light industry zone.

Rendering by Nuria Hernández
Amador

4. Industria del Hierro (Ill. 180)

Infill development
Block scale (MUP)
Location: Arco Norte, Querétaro.
Description of the site: Industria del Hierro (Industry of Iron) is at the moment an urban empty space
of approximately 26 hectares and is sorrounded by a wall of pink quarry of 2.5 or 3 meters height. This
barrier prevents the connection of the near commercial centers (Plaza del Parque, Plaza Bulevares,
large stores like Walmart, Sam’s and Costco) and of the gated housing community of Jacarandas north
of this urban hole. It is separated also of housing developments located at the south.
Proposal: As Industria del Hierro is a practically uninhabited zone, it is possible to build any type of
development that allows the multiple connection from north to south and east to west. There are
proposed 4 typologies of mixed use buildings, the rehabilitation of the zone by the creation of atmos-
pheres within the land and therefore its density. In order to promote live spaces the 24 hours of the
day, buildings of 4 levels with mixed uses are set out: commerce, administrative services, departments,
office buildings, as well as public spaces and recreational parks with multifunctional fields.
Some buildings count with landscaped roofs; illuminated and hoisted pedestrian footpaths are set out
to create pleasant and interesting passages between different nodes of activity (ACG).

Illustration 180. Industria del Hierro.

Rendering by Nuria Hernández
Amador

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 203

 Projects at the neighborhood scale (LUP: 100–300 m) (Ill. 181)
There is only one kind of project proposed at this scale for the network of urban projects. It is a trans-
versal pedestrian bridge that connects both sides of the urban tissue at Bernardo Quintana Boulevard,
the motorway at the north edge of Arco Norte. This project might (should) be ideally repeated along
the motorway at every ¼ of a mile (the famous 5-minute-walk) to literally operate as stitches to bind
again the urban tissue.
This project provides the city with an approximate area of 30,000 m2 of new urban land, or connective
tissue and it is posed over the motorway as a node in the network (right).
The four basements are intended to be connected directly with urban strips along the avenues (as in
the Rue Rivoli model).
There is a direct link of the four basements of the project with the arcades proposed at both sides
of Bernardo Quintana Boulevard; along the southern edge of the Sam’s-Walmart development and
along the northern edge in a proposed mixed uses development that would serve as a boundary to
the park.
In the area studied, there are possibilities of inserting this same program (with variations) in five or six
specific spots:
a. at northwestern edge of the area, at the corner of Bernardo Quintana and Pie de la Cuesta with a
connective projects that includes a hotel, a commercial and office building and a pedestrian square
to link the hotel with the university campus in the western edge;
b. as a link for the Sam’s-Walmart new mixed uses complex with the new urban strip that bounds the
park in the north;
c. as a link for the northeastern corner of Jacarandas, the northwestern corner of the new develop-
ment in Plaza del Parque and the urban strip at the other side of the motorway and as a connection
to the Park;
d. as a link in Plaza del Parque, at its northeastern corner, which is the southwestern corner of the
crossroads, with the hotel at the southeast of the crossroads, and the urban strips at the northern
edge of Bernardo Quintana and finally
e. as a link of Plaza Bulevares (southwest) and its corresponding side corner (at the southeast) with
the opposite corners at the northern edge of Bernardo Quintana.

Illustration 181. Transversal pedes-

trian bridge. Rendering by Nuria
Hernández Amador

204 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

5 Conclusions
Weeks after the exercises were finished we have concluded that the specific form of the projects is
useful to determine quantitatively some features of the project. However, we now think that in order to
assess network features of the set of projects, as node density, a fundamental ingredient of complexity,
in the neighborhood and larger scales, only the program is relevant. The specific form of the project is
relevant in smaller scales, but it did not have significant incidence at the neighborhood scale using the
graphic GIS interface that is presented in chapter 9.

Endnotes
1. We have added aim number 7, common vision that was originally not considered in the workshop
as potential for this area but is a fundamental feature for sustainable projects, thus it will be consid-
ered in this program.
2. The initials of the students collaborating in these projects are included in each description. The
collaborating students are: Ana Claudia García (ACG); Nuria Hernández Amador (NHA) and María
Guadalupe Ledezma (MGL).

Chapter 7: A Network of Connective Urban Projects 205

206 Connectivity-oriented urban projects
8 Connectivity strategies for the urban system

Strategy

1. Introduction
In the Spatial Planning and Design Department of the School of Architecture at the Technical Univer-
sity of Delft, Holland, two cycles have been identified (Brouwer, Hulsbergen and Kriens) that illustrate
the steps through which spatial design processes pass. The most obvious is the practice cycle, made
up of four cyclical stages: analysis, design, execution and evaluation. The second, called the theoreti-
cal cycle for spatial planning and design, also consists of four cyclical stages: analysis, design, strate-
gies and evaluation.
The major difference between the practice and theoretical cycles is that the latter includes strategies
that make the cycle more complete, given that, in reality, the practice cycle passes directly from the
proposal of a solution, hypothesis or design to execution to evaluation (when conditions permit) and
so on, in succession. The theoretical cycle identifies, prior to execution, a series of strategies whose
desired effect is to help achieve the design’s goals or objectives; that is, to complement design propos-
als in order to carry out the mission in a more structured way.
The practice cycle, as its name suggests, is based on trial and error. In fact, there is a pragmatic design
method that functions precisely this way, launching formal hypotheses and later testing their validity
through execution. In the theoretical cycle, the designer has the valuable opportunity to deepen his or
her approaches through the use of strategies that complement and support them. The fact is that the
practice cycle tends to become erratic and to have too-narrow links between the proposals and their
later execution and evaluation, once the design has been converted into something spatially concrete.
The theoretical cycle is strategically deepened to ensure that determined goals are achieved in the
design phase, but there is no concrete way to test the hypotheses beyond the use of reality models.
A third cycle is proposed to connect the two mentioned above, forming a hybrid between the theoreti-
cal and practice cycles that retains the best of both. A third cycle that may retain the best of the two
above-mentioned cycles: concrete testing of design hypotheses that have been carefully studied and
supported by strategies.

Diagram Third Cycle (Ill. 5)

Chapter 8: Connectivity strategies for the urban system 207

 This chapter proposes a vision for spatial planning and design that uses the third cycle, beginning with
urban projects and the use of strategies.
Urban projects permit the completion of the principal premise of the practice cycle; that is, that the
hypotheses can be carried out. Carrying out the hypotheses, altough it may only be virtually by means
of concrete urban projects, permits the evaluation of the design as if it had already been built. This
proposal goes beyond the abstract planning that dominated the growth and organization of cities in
the past century and is the emerging trend today.
Strategies, in turn, permit theoretical deepening which supports the design through identification of
structured forms to achieve the goals the design lays out.
The methodological proposal presented here goes beyond strategic planning as it is understood
today. It seeks to integrate public participation in defining the design and strategies for achieving
its objectives, beginning with the construction of a common vision of a possible future. Moreover, its
objective is to attack the most serious problem for sustainability of the urban system in the probable
future (identification of problems); in it five general sustainability goals are proposed (spatial planning)
and, in addition, it refers directly to concrete urban projects (spatial design), uniting both approaches
to providing solutions. The proposed methodology surpasses the three facets that have traditionally
contributed to thinking on sustainability (environmental, social and economic) in order to support also
the aspect of local identity and the use of complex systems and networks to deal with the phenom-
enon of organized complexity that is, in fact, the city.
The third cycle proposed here complements the advantages of the theoretical and practice cycles for
spatial planning and design but also adds the integrating vision of Paul Drewe (2001) who for some
years has proposed that the reading of reality be done beginning with what has been called mixed
scanning or mixed scrutiny of reality. In Drewe’s proposal, the combined approaches are those of
bottom-to-top projects with top-to-bottom contours. Our proposal deals with the concurrence of
the two cycles, one more abstract or theoretical (that of planning, with its corresponding strategies)
and the other more concrete or practical (that of spatial design of urban projects with its objective
quantifiability).
In every case, one must establish a link between the strategies as part of a mixed cycle or mixed scan-
ning and the projects presented in the previous chapter. We should consider these projects as a direct
response to an identified problem and remember that they follow programmatic statements that
derive from the broad objectives or general goals of connectivity, previously laid out.
In this chapter we recount a step prior to urban projects in order to position them methodologically.
This previous step refers to the definition of problems identified as the most serious obstacles to con-
nectivity and continuity of the urban system. We then refer to the step following the implementation
of the projects, the central theme of this chapter, the establishment of strategies for achieving connec-
tivity goals proposed in urban projects.

2. Problems identified as obstacles to the sustainability of

the urban system
With the urge to establish as clearly and completely as possible the problem of connectivity for the
urban system (seen in the world as a system of megalopolis, metropolis, cities, small cities, villages,
etc.) we propose here the problematic areas of the system, linking each with a specific corresponding
sphere of influence:

208 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

a. Environmental deterioration and contamination, which corresponds to the broad environmental
problem that has characterized our civilization’s growth in recent centuries.
b. The impracticability of the dominant economic model, which is the global economic state that
George Soros calls market fundamentalism: neoliberalism or out-and-out capitalism.
c. Social segmentation, the phenomenon that is part of a vicious circle in which it serves as both
cause and effect.
d. Cultural globalization, which goes along with and supports the tactics of capitalist globalization,
generally based on extreme consumerism.
e. The use of an inappropriate scientific model which is Cartesian and stochastic, with which we have
been trying to understand and take part in the urban environment, a phenomenon of organized
complexity.

These problematic areas can be explained as much from the perspective of the organizational patterns
of modern civilization as from analysis of the spatial structures it produces (see chapter 2). In this arti-
cle we try to include both approaches.

Environmental deterioration and contamination

The new economy causes environmental deterioration, not only by increasing the impact of its opera-
tions on the planet’s ecosystems, but also by eliminating environmental laws in country after country.
In other words, environmental destruction is not just a side effect but an integral part of the design of
global capitalism. (Capra, p. 148) Besides being unsustainable in its current form, global capitalism is
socially and ecologically unsustainable as well and is not viable over the long term.
Environmental deterioration and contamination can also be explained from the perspective of urban
structures, organized in recent years like machines and following linear patterns of organization that
come from the industrial paradigm. The modern city and its structures have generally linear resource-
consumption processes; that is, the networked organization of the worldwide ecosystem has not been
taken into account. In the beliefs common to the paradigm of the modern city, as in a machine, natural
resources flow from a type of source that was considered inexhaustible until quite recently; moreo-
ver, the wastes from city processes were, until a relatively short time ago, discarded without thinking
about where they went or how they affected the environment. The modern city was not organized
to accommodate the feedback cycles found in any complex natural system, and that is the source of a
serious breach in environmental quality. To these factors we must add the fact that modernity has also
meant an increase in worldwide population and, above all, a massive global migration from semi-rural
to urban areas.

The impracticality of the economic model

“New capitalism, which is one of the forces of globalization, is in some respects a mystery…we don’t
know everything about how it works.” (Giddens in De Geus 1997, Capra, p. 139)
Recent economic crises have thrown approximately 40 percent of the world population into a deep
recession. The United Nations Development Program recently published the figure that the 500 rich-
est individuals in the world have combined annual incomes equal to those of the 416 million poorest
individuals on the planet. (August 2005)
The new economy consists of a meta-network of complex technological and human interactions that
include multiple feedback cycles operating far out of balance and that produce an unending variety
of emerging phenomena.

Chapter 8: Connectivity strategies for the urban system 209

 The information circuits of the global economy operate at such speed and use such a multitude of
sources that they are constantly reacting to a huge quantity of information, and thus the system as
a whole functions more and more out of control, yet the key issue is not technology but politics and
human values. And these human values can change: they are not natural laws. The same networks for
financial information flows could have different values incorporated.
Manuel Castells (1996) provides a detailed analysis of the social and cultural impact of globalized capi-
talism. Money has become almost independent of production and services, escaping through virtual
reality from electronic networks. Capital is global while work, as a general rule, is local. Thus capital
and work increasingly exist in different spaces and times: the virtual space of financial flows and the
real space of local and regional places where people are employed. (Wenger 1998 in Capra, p. 142)
Work has become fragmented, and its power has been reduced. Many of today’s workers, whether
unionized or not, have stopped looking for better salaries or working conditions for fear that their
jobs will be transferred elsewhere. Work is losing its collective identity and the power to negotiate
collectively.
The new economy has enriched a global elite of financial speculators, impresarios and high-technol-
ogy professionals. At the summit there has been an unprecedented accumulation of wealth. Nev-
ertheless and above all, the social and economic impacts have been disastrous. The fragmentation
and individualization of work and the gradual dismantling of the welfare state under the pressures of
economic globalization have meant that the rise of global capitalism has been accompanied by grow-
ing inequality and polarization. (Castells 1998)
The gap between poor and rich has widened significantly; the richest 20 percent now possess 85
percent of the world’s wealth, while the poorest 20 percent possess only 1.4 percent of that wealth.
(Wenger, 1998)
From the point of view of urban structures, the economic model has produced two types of city directly
related to social segmentation. Christine Boyer has named these two types the figured city and the
disfigured city.

Social segmentation
A social network is a non-linear pattern of organization with concepts that come from complexity
theory, such as feedback and emergence. Social networks are the first and most important communi-
cation networks and are currently found in the process of breaking off or segmentation.
Global capitalism has increased poverty and social inequality not only by transforming the relation-
ships between capital and work, but also through the process of “social exclusion,” a direct conse-
quence of network structure in the new economy.
While capital and information flows are interconnected in worldwide networks, at the same time, all
populations and territories that have no value or interest in the pursuit of financial gain are excluded
from these networks. As a result, segments of societies and entire areas of cities, regions and even
countries have been rendered economically irrelevant. But the problem is aggravated by the social
segmentation that this model brings about.
Global capitalism does not relieve poverty and social exclusion; on the contrary, it exacerbates them.
Economists have not considered the environmental cost of the new economy, much less contemplated
the equally high social cost that comes with it. (Capra, 1982)
Structurally, it is notable how public spaces in the modern city have radically diminished or disap-
peared. When it comes to spaces that permit interaction among different social classes, contact
between those classes has decreased to a much greater degree than was seen in the city through the
19th century. Modern urban space has also contributed to social segmentation because it has stopped
according privileges to people and instead gives them to the automobile. This situation, already seri-

210 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

ous, is even worse in the cities of developing countries or in undeveloped poor countries in which
only a minority has access to a vehicle, but in which, paradoxical as it seems, urban growth has been
planned and carried out based on the automobile.

Cultural globalization
To achieve a systemic understanding of social reality, we must focus on the anthropological meaning
of culture, an integrated system of acquired values, beliefs and rules of conduct that define the range
of acceptable behavior in a given society.
Culture emerges from a highly complex and non-linear dynamic. It is generated by a social network
that includes many feedback cycles through which values, beliefs and rules of conduct are continu-
ously communicated, modified and sustained. Culture emerges from a network of communication
among individuals.
According to Galbraith (Capra, p. 89), individuals and groups seek power in order to advance their
own interests and to extend to others their personal values, whether religious or social. Power plays a
central role in the emergence of social structures.
Generation of material and social structures (patterns) is a key characteristic of the dynamic of social
networks, of culture and of the origin of power (see Table 1 in chapter 2). (Capra, p. 90)
Social structures are the fundamental concept of social theory. (Castells, 1996) In the globalized
world, communication networks have been used to dismantle local and regional cultural models and
replace them with global models that generally favor unflinching consumption. The power of mar-
keting in the new economy transcends borders, languages and idiosyncracies and is putting an end
to long-standing cultural values that have a symbiotic relationship with the place where they were
generated. Once again, we can speak of the city as a machine and of the “international” attributes with
which modern planning and design have imbued it. It is no longer surprising to find ourselves in the
modern section of any city in the world and realize that we could be anywhere. There is no local iden-
tity in the modern city, and the global identity that the modern city has achieved is mechanical (that of
the city as machine). This necessarily affects, negatively from my point of view, the social patterns of
the inhabitants.

An unsuitable scientific model

To all of these issues can be added one that we have noted, citing Jane Jacobs (1961): that urban space
has been treated, through both spatial planning and design, as a disconnected collection of mechani-
cal spaces for living, working, producing, reproducing and of course, transporting… the perfect
machine foreseen by futurists, developed by Corbusier and promoted by the leading producers of
automobiles.
After the vision of the city put forth by early modernists proved ineffective in dealing with the com-
plexity of the urban phenomenon, new scientific discoveries in the “new” science of networks pro-
vided the foundations for innovative approaches to the study of that phenomenon and could help us
better understand such complexity more effectively.

Chapter 8: Connectivity strategies for the urban system 211

 3. Strategies

3.1 Preservation strategies

i. Reduction
Reduction is, perhaps, the most important strategy for environmental conservation. Moreover, con-
sumption habits have altered in recent years as a result of the dizzying increase in world population
and for other diverse reasons, one of which is the promulgation of extreme consumerism in some
industrialized nations, such as the United States. Such conditions have drastically elevated the per
capita consumption of resources in many regions of the planet and now, in order to maintain a level
“standard” of living, it is necessary to consume even more. Reduction is an elementary strategy: reduc-
tion in the consumption of resources, beginning with community awareness. This deals principally
with knocking down consumption indexes for water and energy from nonrenewable sources, such as
petroleum. Since the 1970s, when the petroleum crisis that affected the availability of hydrocarbons
was resolved, the Western world has developed some strategies for reducing energy consumption, but
from my point of view, this has been done without modifying the indiscriminate use of the principal
consumption factor: the automobile. To reduce the use of automobiles is a fundamental strategy for
environmental conservation.
Today, drinking water is expected to become increasingly scarce and is therefore the resource to which
we must pay special attention in order to reduce its use.
This is probably the most needed environmental conservation strategy for establishing conditions of
world sustainability; in the case of the urban projects network presented in this chapter, it is the most
frequently recurring environmental strategy. Of course, reduction in use, first of the automobile and
second of motorized vehicles, is also discussed, along with the subsequent reduction in consumption
of carbon-based fuels, which for now and many years to come will be coming from non-renewable and
highly contaminating sources.
The reduction strategy for consumption of carbon-based fuels complements the ease with which the
urban environment can put in place the most basic and sustainable means of transport, walking.
It could be expected that the network of proposed projects would also reduce consumption of other
resources, such as water, although this is not as clear as in the first instance.

ii. Reuse
Linear consumption models, so convenient for the large industrial consortia, have promoted a culture
of blind consumption; that is, lack of awareness of where resources come from and where wastes go.
New re-use strategies have emerged in the last decades of the 20th century and the first decade of the
21st. Recovering at least a part of the resources used in order to use them again is not a new practice;
but it entered into disfavor due to the consumerist paradigm. Nevertheless, this strategy is gaining
new strength, because of campaigns exposing the serious problem of overexploitation of resources
and their obvious destruction due to unchanging consumption models.
Today, the re-use strategy is steadily gaining acceptance and is being put into practice, especially for
water, which can be re-used for diverse purposes before being subjected to recycling.
In urban structures, it is possible and necessary to set out the conditions for better re-use of resources
when our water is once again pristine.

212 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Taking advantage of urban land designated for mixed – and we should also say complementary – pur-
poses facilitates a strategy like the re-use of resources, principally water in the case of our project
network. Grey water, which has been used in residential nodes can be re-used almost directly in some
non-residential nodes without a major problem other than its re-use in the same combination of resi-
dential nodes.
The distribution of mixed-use land also facilitates the re-use of materials that in some cases might be
considered waste, without necessitating any treatment which would convert re-use to recycling.

iii. Recycling
Resource recycling is a model that has always existed in nature: the waste from one system is the
input for another, forming an intricate network whose feedback cycles are nothing more than what
we increasingly know as recycling. Recycling differs from re-use in that it implies a process of external
transformation which affects the recycled object. In re-use, the object to be recycled is not affected.
More and more recycling strategies are appearing, including strategies for recycling water with proc-
esses that are introduced physically and chemically into the resource in order to convert it to an input
for another process.
The principal problem is that we have efficiently eliminated nearly all cyclical processes from our civi-
lization; we live in an environment in which use and discard is a daily practice. Recycling strategies
should include an integrated vision of flows and can thus be applied within the sphere of the city or
that of the urban fabric.
Design in its broadest sense consists of giving form to energy and material flows for human purposes.
Ecodesign is a process in which our human purposes are carefully interlocked with the patterns and
flows of the natural world. The principals of ecodesign reflect, in turn, the principles of organization
that nature has allowed to evolve in order to sustain the network of life. (Capra)
Two recycling strategies are taken into consideration in our project network: water recyling and waste
recycling.
In a community that represents organized complexity, wastes from one system can become resources
for another. The complementary nature of functions, added to a new culture of conservation can be
concomitant with this strategy.
In the case of water recycling, the community formed by the combination of urban projects is per-
fectly capable of recycling the water resource to irrigate green areas and gain economic advantage.
Water that has already been re-used or converted to contaminated water can be treated on this scale
more easily than on a larger scale, simply because it requires less transport to take it to the system re-
entry point. A network of local water treatment plants, on the scale of 1,000-to-3,000 meters can be
sustained by the community. The waste recycling strategy can be put in place specifically for organic
waste and with the same recycling tactic used for water; that is, to create small recycling centers that
produce resources – compost – to be re-introduced into the system at nearby sites.

3.2 Accessibility strategies

Empirical studies conducted recently at Oxford Brookes University by Jencks and Dempsey in 2005
found that the principal factor to keep in mind for social sustainability is accessibility. This term, so
commonly used today, does more than simply define the ability to access a certain geographic place.
Its connotation is much broader, as evidenced by our mention here of three accessibility strategies in
addition to the spatial one: the ability to access information about the environment in which one lives;

Chapter 8: Connectivity strategies for the urban system 213

 the ability to access decision-making processes about the environment in which one lives; and the abil-
ity to access time projections (length of time) for decisions about the environment in which one lives.
In the end, accessibility is a fundamental part of connectivity, which is the subject of this study. Acces-
sibility is both a cause and an effect of connectivity. Both operate in a feedback cycle in urban net-
works of organized complexity.
In the case of our network of urban projects, spatial accessibility is the center of attention and the
number-one strategy because it is probably related to the greatest number of other strategies in addi-
tion to its relevance for connecting once again with our cities. Let’s study the four accessibility strate-
gies proposed for our project network.

Spatial accessibility
This is probably the most significant strategy for attacking the problem of social segmentation. Lack of
spatial access leads to lack of access to information and decision-making. Here we should understand
that urban accessibility is the potential for access to city networks, whether of mobility or other flows
such as energy, water, telephony and, more recently, the potential for information access.
For now, we will deal only with the potential for spatial access as a fundamental equity strategy.
In the modern city, just the opposite has happened. The separation of uses, individualism and the eco-
nomic model have led to lack of access to a good part of the spatial networks at the lowest social levels,
keeping in mind as well the privilege accorded the automobile by the modern city. From there, the
most important action would be to return the potential for access to urban space to all social classes.
But before pushing for accessibility to urban space, it would be necessary to increase the proportion of
truly urban spaces, which are becoming increasingly scarce in the contemporary city.
The factor that possibly counts most for accessibility to urban space is its potential to be walked, or its
walkability, to use a term of the New Urbanism.
Previously we mentioned how walkability is composed of various factors, such as capillarity and polar-
ity, plus the visual permeability of the space (see chapter 5).
A complete strategy cannot overlook these factors, which can be used to improve the accessibility of
city space.
For our network of urban projects, this is the fundamental strategy, which we can call strategy number
one. As we have already mentioned, it is strongly related to spatial connectivity and has been shown
to be derived from other types of connectivity, such as social and economic. It can also be argued that
spatial connectivity has an impact on environmental connectivity.
To reinforce the above, we report on the important relationship between this fundamental strategy
and others mentioned in this chapter.
Spatial accessibility has a direct link with reduced use of the automobile. Proposed mixed uses provide
accessibility to walkable distances and the strategy of accessibility. Walkability provides the alternative
of more basic mobility that has been lost to such a great degree in our cities: the possibility of walking
safely and pleasantly. Reduction in the use of resources for better spatial accessibility also has to do
with a reduction in the use of time resources. Today, in the contemporary city, the time the common
citizen uses to access diverse nodes is enormous. The reduction of time in order to have accessibility is
a dream that civilization has had since ancient times but that has been pursued since the Renaissance
with individualistic attitudes based on technology which can be called technological determinism.
Reduction of the time required for accessibility can be achieved by putting things within easier reach
and making them more accessible for the community.
Spatial accessibility also implies accessibility to information that has been readable from time imme-
morial in public spaces. Contact with people and the built environment provides information that is
fundamental for the emergence of civilization.

214 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

In addition, accessibility is related to competitiveness (which we explain later) in that it develops better
environments, better public spaces and, to sum up, delivers added value that makes the network of
urban projects, such as that presented here, offer important added value.
A strategic relationship that is also of great importance is that between spatial accessibility and the
development of positive economic cycles at local or regional levels. As we explain here, these local
cycles are being lost due to the operation of the global economy. This pattern has to do, of course,
with the fragmented structure of contemporary cities in which it is much more difficult to build local
economic cycles because of the physical separation between nodes.
The spatial accessibility strategy is closely linked to the strategy of using patterns of organized com-
plexity. In fact. spatial accessibility can be observed and evaluated along with collateral connectivity
in urban systems beginning with graphic models such as that presented in chapter 9.
Finally, we must say, in order to support a sense of the fundamental importance of the spatial acces-
sibility strategy, that it also has a close relationship with the vision of networks that is so necessary for
understanding the phenomenon of organized complexity. The principles on which the composition
of the network of projects presented is based are those of a holarchy; that is, the projects have an
order linked on all scales, and the network is built from bottom to top, from the smallest to the largest
projects.

Access to information
The city is not the property of a few. It belongs to everyone.
Starting with this principle we can generate a strategy for access to information, with which we seek
to give the citizen a reliable source of information about probable futures and the possibility of choos-
ing, in cooperation with other citizens, possible futures for planning and designing the environment
in which he or she lives.
It is also important to keep in mind the information that cities possess about the other time dimension:
the past. There are patterns of organization of urban structures that have evolved over time, achieving
in this way better adaptation and strength.
The modern movement was proposed (with almost total success) as an end to appraisal through pat-
terns of spatial organization as was done in the past. It is enough to remember futurist theories at the
beginning of the 20th century from which derives the almost fanatical vision of the city as a machine
and the mechanistic principles of the Corbusian city that spread as a true affliction from the middle of
the past century. The modern citizen was deprived of the richness of information of evolved space,
exchanging it for the minimal information that contemporary space is capable of communicating.
Concretely then, the strategy for information accessibility consists of two types of access: access to
information about possible and probable futures for the community in which one lives and access to
the information that evolved space provides to the citizen, the collective memory of civilization.
We can affirm that in the process of designing the urban projects network presented in this chapter,
both strategies for access to information have been utilized. The project designers have been can-
didates for the master’s degree in New Urbanism who were previously informed regarding probable
and possible futures of the community in which they live. This is a definitive factor for changing the
attitudes with which the designer approaches the project. Additionally, special care has been taken
with projects that offer access to information – readable in the urban space. The series of projects pre-
sented in chapter 7 does not yet present this information, given that it depends on another research
project, still in progress, regarding local spatial patterns (see point d. iii of this chapter) which deals
with strategies of identity related to the use of patterns of complexity.

Chapter 8: Connectivity strategies for the urban system 215

 Access to decision making
Besides being marginalized from the space inhabited by the citizen, thanks to contemporary planning,
information about the past and future has also been marginalized from the decision-making processes
related to that information. The contemporary planning process has been top-down, a taxing action
regarding the space we all inhabit.
The accessibility strategy for decision-making presumes the involvement of citizens in the process of
selecting possible futures, and here is where design comes in as a highly useful tool because of its
inherent nature, concretely and graphically illustrated in possible futures.
It has been written that science is created through knowledge of probable futures, but that to know
possible futures, it is necessary to design them.
In the context of this strategy, there are already proven methods and techniques for involving citizens
in decision-making, beginning with design; that is, beginning with the knowledge of possible futures
for the environment in which they live, based on the objective vision of reality (diagnosis) and on some
more fortunate cases as well as on local patterns of spatial organization that have evolved (and that
have therefore become more suitable, according to Darwin). These processes or strategies for acces-
sibility to decision-making are called “charrettes” in the United States or “enquiry by design” in the
United Kingdom.
Which accessibility strategy should be followed for decision-making in Latin American countries?
What techniques would be best?
We should say that this is a strategy in process, not yet present in the urban projects network. We
should also mention that a research project will be carried out in parallel with this work to answer these
two questions. Concrete results are expected within one-to-two years.

Codification of collective decisions

To complement the series of accessibility strategies, we should add one more to ensure that the deci-
sions made by the community in participative processes can be documented in a way that minimizes
possible interpretations and ensures the quality visualized in the participative processes.
New Urbanism has successfully developed a strategy for documenting community decisions through
“form-based codes,” which include a graphic document of great clarity that leaves little room for ambi-
guity, thereby supporting the process of helping decisions to endure over time.
We should also mention the use of another type of coding to communicate our vision among ourselves
and to future generations.
Now we know that we can codify or zone from top to bottom. For example, we can say that the offices
go here, the residences there, etc. But can we write a code from bottom to top – a code that generates
the organized complexity of nature? And can we do so in a way that produces a more vital and desir-
able result than the results obtained from conventional codes?
“I believe that the new science of complexity suggests that we can and now it begins to teach us
how.” (Michael Mehaffy, Codes and the Architecture of Life, Katarxis No. 3) As in the previous point, the
codification of collective decisions in “codes” is currently being researched with respect to its potential
relationship to the proposed project network.

216 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

3.3 Viability strategies
Without a doubt, the key strategy for achieving a sustainable civilization is principally economic. The
entree to a sustainable environment is normally closed when one arrives by a road that is just environ-
mental or just social and has no direction when the arrival is by a solely spatial road. Even combina-
tions of the social and environmental aspects have not been effective for access to a sustainable built
environment. Economics is key, and strategies of this order are the launching point for the combina-
tion of strategies proposed here. We present three strategies for economic viability, which, like all the
rest, are directed at supporting the achievement of objectives for urban connectivity projects, but
which, because of the above, are considered the key for beginning to realize those projects.
In the proposal we have made, economic viability of projects has been kept in mind quite seriously. In
fact, the holarchic structure that the projects present permits the viability of large projects to impact
that of the small ones and vice versa.
One thinks of financing the small projects beginning with the capture of surplus value or obtaining
resources through nonconventional means such as the transfer of land use potential, etc., always seeing
the network as a whole and not as isolated nodes. We think that this holistic vision can strengthen the
viability of the project network. Let’s analyze the three aspects of economic viability:

Competitiveness
This fundamental strategy supports the macrostrategy of viability. Without it, urban projects simply
are not carried out, no matter how much they are subsidized. Of course, we are dealing here with con-
nectivity-oriented urban projects that have the opportunity of competing favorably with the conven-
tional urban growth model. We are, then, putting ourselves in competition with a conventional system
in which urban sprawl is principally the result of the large margins on rates of return that speculation
on urban land can bring, against an emerging system in which competitition is based on two factors
linked to it: increase in density and increase in the quality of urban space. The first factor provides
quantitative competitiveness, the second qualitative. With just the first, one can compete favorably
with conventional growth, but this is not enough; it is necessary to include the quality factor in order
to round off a competitive scheme. This is accessed through design and a concrete vision of additional
amenities in facilities and services for which connectivity-oriented urban projects are unsurpassed by
the conventional scattered development scheme. The added value provided is the value of connectiv-
ity in the traditional city, the sum of the values of walkability, shared space, local economic develop-
ment and various others.
It is necessary to develop the competitiveness of urban connectivity projects and to document it. This
will be of great importance for viability in the immediate future.
We consider this to be the most important strategy, after spatial accessibility, for supporting the project
network. It is the number-2 strategy of the proposal. Competitiveness means ability to compete, but
against what or against whom? Here, it means to compete against the model of urban sprawl that is
so harmful to the sustainability of civilization. Of course, the model of sprawl is effective because it
has sold us the idea of better living in the countryside, far from the “problems” of the city and close to
nature. Thus the principal competition is against this fallacy, and the competitiveness of our model will
be based on information and how it is presented.
Turning to competitiveness as a strategy, we will now show the relationships found between this and
other proposed strategies in order to demonstrate its capital importance.
The competitiveness of an urban system like the one presented has to do with the environmental
factor: an urban system that has reduced its consumption of resources, re-uses them and recycles

Chapter 8: Connectivity strategies for the urban system 217

 them is a more efficient and competitive urban system. Information about successful cases of environ-
mentally sustainable urban systems is more and more widely available.
Certainly the competitiveness of an urban system has a close connection with the spatial accessibility
of its structure, and here we refer to complete spatial accessibility, from the basic scale of the pedes-
trian to the largest scales of commercial transport, etc. Spatial accessibility, broadly understood, gen-
erates better and more pleasant environments for the urban system and makes it more competitive.
Each day more people prefer to live in urban environments with pedestrian accessibility to everyday
services. Surprisingly, in some sectors of cities like Los Angeles, which is still an archetype of urban
sprawl, citizens are, little by little, returning to the use of high-quality public transport and walking
through attractive mixed-use spaces. Spatial accessibility is ever more desirable and, paradoxically, is
increasingly becoming a source of added value for urban space.
In relation to competitiveness, a spatial accessibility strategy is extremely relevant. Jane Jacobs (2004)
again demonstrates the importance of these two strategies, working in combination for the develop-
ment of positive local economic cycles. Competitiveness is also related to citizen access and to infor-
mation and decision-making. An urban community in which people can know probable futures and
collaborate to access sustainable futures, as well as participate in decisions for achieving them, creates
an increasingly desirable, more democratic community. One can observe that more and more people
are interested in information and participation in the process of shaping the community to produce
concrete results. The ability to access information and decision-making is also an added value of the
proposed project network.
The sum of these two capabilities, plus the government to put them into action, together with concrete
programs and projects is “governance,” a strategy that is also closely linked to the competitiveness of
communities. To the extent that information is better (because of advances in educational systems),
communities become more interested in decisions about the structures they live in, and their patterns
of organization can then be decided on and implemented together with the elected government. This
desirable situation competes advantageously against the still-dominant paradigm of the “new urban
regime” in which the city is governed by a formal governmental entity and another informal entity
composed of oligarchies, and in which common citizens do not discover information about futures,
much less have access to decision-making. There is hope that in the future democratic processes will
be more and more competitive with authoritarian ones.
Connectivity-oriented urban project networks have a strong link to positive economic cycles on the
local level. It is possible to demonstrate (although it is not the goal of this study) that the organized
complexity of mixed-use communities, with nodes arranged within walkable distances, is an excellent
medium in which local economies can flourish. The sum of small economic acts can generate emer-
gence and constitute an economic system of great strength. It is a competitive strategy.
Also competitive is the procurement of altermative resources for financing urban projects. Local gov-
ernments generally do not have sufficient resources to maintain the urban structures that they govern,
but we are not suggesting financial intervention for putting in place projects like those presented.
Nevertheless, there are alternate means of financing, such as the capture of surplus value, that are, in
themselves, a strategy for economic viability and also, therefore, competitive.
The network of projects presented takes the above into consideration and proposes the use of alter-
native financing: the capture of surplus value through the generation of new urban spaces and the
transfer of these resources, in a specified manner, to the smallest projects in order to guarantee their
economic viability. We believe this is more competitive than the growth scheme of the sprawling
city in which local government has to negotiate and generally accept the conditions that develop-
ers impose to finance the infrastructure necessary for their developments. The model proposed is
competitive in the medium and long terms, when it competes against the fact that local governments
(and their citizens) have to bear the costs of maintenance for the irrational infrastructures that urban

218 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

sprawl produces. The costs of infrastructure construction and maintenance for connectivity-oriented
projects are radically lower than those for the sprawl model.
The competitiveness of an urban system has to do with the cultural competition that puts sprawling
growth beside a series of empty and inauthentic, not to say false, cultural models imposed by the
seductive art of marketing in cities. The proposed network of connectivity-oriented projects com-
petes advantageously with this reality due to its design processes and the study and interpretation of
patterns and of organization whose validity, relevance and authenticity have been proven over time
and, especially important, in the place where their continued use is contemplated. The urban system
of connectivity projects competes, bearing in mind the spirits of place and time of the community in
which the system is built.

Governance
In order to speak concretely of the financing of urban development, we begin by recognizing that
decentralization of decision-making is in process worldwide. Cities are increasingly autonomous in the
decision-making process, as it relates to the space they occupy, as well as more autonomous financially.
The economic resources of cities are increasingly limited to the income they can obtain on their own.
Thus the exploration of new concepts for obtaining alternative financing becomes indispensible. Such
exploration has been carried out in the context of the phenomenon of governance which is explained
by the new urban policy (Cuenya, 2003). This, in turn, consists of two theories, that of the growth
machine, which explains the reality of growth in collective space (the city) focused on the economic
benefits of a few, and the theory of the new urban regime which explains how those few beneficiaries
of the new urban regime form what could be called an informal government that, together with the
formal one, makes decisions about the development of the city. These theories open the possibility of
a debate about the governance of the city with two clear trends: that of top-down decision-making
by a small group of people against bottom-up decision-making beginning with small and large urban
projects. Once again the conciliatory posture of “mixed scanning” emerges, and we now must propose
urban connectivity projects as that third road, reconciling the two processes.
The proposed urban projects network is not in itself an instrument for contributing to governance,
but it can be an example for visualizing the possibilities that permit a specific group to make better
decisions for its own community. Governance can be more effective if models are used that permit
comparison of proposed complexity patterns with other patterns that have proved successful over
time, as is the case with patterns in the historic center of the city of Querétaro. An urban system with
effective governance is a more competitive and therefore more viable system.

Local economic viability

For the sustainability of civilization, recovering the viability of local economies is indispensible in the
face of global macroeconomies. One must note that the economic networks of global capitalism have
meant growth, but local economic networks mean development: growth and development are two
very distinct terms. The former is mechanical, the second organic. Also, in terms of sustainability, it
is necessary to find a term that harmonizes growth and development, accommodating the global to
the local and vice versa. Carmona (2003) has listed concrete obstacles to the search for such a term:
the lack of local technological infrastructure; obstacles to standardization that make the relationship
between local and global economies difficult; lack of housing and lack of local taxing capability that
puts a brake on development. From here we can derive four strategies for urban connectivity projects:
support for development of local technological capability; review, adjustment and simplification of
standardization for urban development -- that is, greater clarity of standards; development of housing

Chapter 8: Connectivity strategies for the urban system 219

 capacity at all social levels and establishment of new ways to finance urban development, such as the
capture of surplus value.
An urban projects network such as that proposed is a suitable means of generating synergies that
drive the local economy. Besides the case of the community of Brampton put forth by Jacobs (2004),
there is currently a research program that shows the correlation of compact, connected and organi-
zationally complex urban spaces with the development of local microeconomies. The viability of this
class of economy is fundamental for sustainability of place and for facing advances and setbacks in the
global economy.

Capturing surplus value

At this point there emerges the strategy for financing urban development with a part of the surplus
value that urban growth generates. Of course, this is a viable strategy in contexts in which high growth
in urban space is expected, as is the case with practically the entire developing world.
The capture of surplus value is principally an equity strategy. On the one hand, citizens have no reason
to finance the enormous gains that a few obtain through speculation, through change of land use or
through public works or installation of public services in the urban space; on the other hand, the sur-
plus value generated by the city’s growth or configuration can be considered, in part, to be collective.
It is important here to point out the social value of private property that provides so much benefit to
the individual property owner and could also benefit the collective public by way of this strategy.
The capture of surplus value is a strategy for financing local development. It implies the inflow of fresh
resources that normally, when there is confidence in the administration of the instrument, are ear-
marked for a specific purpose by common agreement with the community. The specifications should,
at any rate, be concrete so that urban projects once again come to be a reliable instrument for desig-
nating the end use of resources obtained through this strategy-instrument.
In our urban projects network, the use of the strategy for capturing surplus value has been sought in
order to make development viable. Without alternative resources, it is very difficult to do very small
projects on the XS scale, given that, as we have commented, local governments generally do not make
resources available for projects of this nature. Fundamentally, they are seen as isolated nodes, but in
reality they function as a network. Supported by the strategy for capturing surplus value, the neces-
sary funds can be collected in order to deal with the combination of small projects necessary for the
network to function. The resources will come from the community’s appropriation of a part of the
surplus value that large-scale projects generate and that in certain cases may even imply the “creation”
of new, profitable urban land, such as bridges or land-use changes. These also generate useful land
for the community as in the development of urban belts in commercial centers and infill projects for
vacant space, such as the project for the Iron Industry property.
The capture of surplus value for changes from rural to urban use (through posting of large properties
and, of course, sale of new urban land) is an alternative source of financing for the urban development
of growing cities, as in the case of Querétaro, and can eventually be an instrument for controlling the
shape of urban space. In Querétaro, we have carried out parametric research into the resources that
could be obtained by valuing the surplus value for these new land uses at only 20 percent, and we have
concluded that, projecting out 20 years, the city could obtain around $1000 Million USD that will be
needed over that period for acquiring and developing urban land for low-income groups whose needs
have not been addressed by local city governments in Mexico due to lack of income, among other fac-
tors. The city of Querétaro has annual income equivalent to $50 million, so even using all of this money
would scarcely cover the costs of acquiring and developing properties for the neediest groups. (Philib-
ert, Kunz and Morales, 2004) The strategy of capturing surplus value can provide a source of alternate
inflows for the development of connectivity-oriented urban project networks.

220 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Urban projects as instruments of viability
Finally in this section, we return once again to the strategic proposal that urban projects be used as
viability instruments. They are, of course, a new approach to the regulation of urban land (Carmona,
2003), concrete, quantifiable and, above all, with the capability of being visualized by communities.
Carmona (2003) has also argued that urban projects form part of a viability strategy as instruments
to improve governance: they are an instrument for the control of external factors, and they serve as
an instrument for regulating public services. As seen above, they are instruments for the control of
speculation in the capture of surplus value for specific public or public-private undertakings, and they
are coming to be instruments for controlling the shape of the urban space in many cases.

3.4 Identity strategies

In the face of the phenomenon of cultural globalization which strips regions of local cultural values,
we present a general identity strategy that rescues values of place and time (in the broad sense of
the term) where communities live. This rescue is directly related to the terms “spirit of place” (genius
loci) and “spirit of time” (genius seculi or zeitgeist) coined by those who spoke of Roman mythology
and Klotz, respectively. It is, of course, a strategy for rescuing the local culture in order to confront the
empty global spirits of no place and no time.

Spirits of place and time

The strategy for rescuing the spirits of place and time takes its shape from a deep study of the organi-
zational form (patterns) that the built medium (structure) has acquired following the long processes
of adaptation to the site and development of a traditional culture. The rescue of these two processes
is carried out through the study and documentation of observed patterns. One must emphasize two
aspects of the study of spatial-cultural patterns in the literature: one, from the formal and historical
point of view of the built environment (Gindroz and Lewis), to those that we call formal patterns, and
the other, from the holistic vision of the architecture of complexity and the language of patterns (Alex-
ander, Salingaros, Mehaffy), to those that we call simply patterns of complexity.

Formal patterns
The character of a community is described and illustrated based on precedents found in the specific
region. These include patterns of community as well as architectural patterns documented in photo-
graphs, sections and drawings in perspective.
The patterns of community show how individual buildings are related to the streets and public spaces
and described in a plan, perspective drawings and sections for each place in the community. The con-
structive principles of placement and massiveness are obtained from a variety of conditions. Patterns
of community are divided into two sections, the first describing the principles for placing buildings
on their lots, and the second illustrating and describing alignments for specific points in a new com-
munity.
Architectural patterns and their essential qualities are documented graphically, indicating essential
qualities of history and character: massiveness with key details; special elements; doors and windows;
materials and colors; and finally combination possibilities. These possibilities are examined as design
alternatives in which the four or five most important elements are kept in mind to generate a formal
distinction or timeless quality of local space.

Chapter 8: Connectivity strategies for the urban system 221

 Patterns of complexity
Nikos Salingaros*

The word ¨pattern¨ denotes regularity in any dimension The simplest examinations are repeated
visual units ordered with linear symmetry or rotational symmetry. Patterns also exist on a scaled
dimension, when similar forms occur in different magnitudes. When geometric self-similarity
is defined in a hierarchy of scales, a self-similar fractal is generated. The concept of patterns
of complexity also extends to the space of solutions in which solutions to similar problems are
related and define a repeating model, with some variation, each time that the problem is solved.
The idea here is the re-use of information, whether to repeat a unit for generating a bidimen-
sional design or to re-use a general solution in a class of differential equations.
Environmental psychologists know that our surroundings influence not only our way of thinking
but also our intellectual development. Mathematically ordered information in the environment
generates positive emotional responses. If we grow up in an environment that is implicitly anti-
mathematics, our interest in mathematics is adversely affected; it may also affect our ability to
understand mathematical concepts.
What if spending our lives in a world lacking in patterns weakened or even caused us to lose our
capacity to form patterns?
Although the definitive response to this question is unknown, its implications are alarming.
While today there is strong criticism of modern architecture for its lack of human qualities, the
present criticism goes much further. This is not an argument about design or style preferences.
It concerns the trained functionality of the human mind.
Christopher Alexander and his associates have made an effort to define patterns of spatial solu-
tions by collecting urban and architectural solutions in A Pattern Language. These patterns dis-
till timeless archetypes such as the need for light on two sides of a residence, etc. The value
of Alexander´s language of patterns is not that it includes specific types of buildings or urban
spaces but that it includes constructive blocks that can be combined into an infinite number of
styles. This implies a more mathematical and combinative approach to design in general.
Alexander´s patterns represent solutions repeated over time and through space and therefore
are linked to visual patterns transposed in other dimensions. Each discipline collects discovered
regularities to generate a body of solutions that support it. Science (and humanity as a result)
has advanced to the point of cataloging the observed regularities in natural processes in order
to generate different subjects for the study of ordered knowledge (knowledge disciplines). The
elimination of visual patterns generates, in turn, a mental state that only values the unique,
nonreproducible cases, which has the effect of eliminating all patterns, visual as well as spatial.
Fortunately, the structural solutions on which architects depend remain within the sphere of
engineering, which preserves accumulated knowledge for re-use.

* Salingaros, Nikos (2006) A Theory of Architecture, Umbau-Verlag, Solingen, Germany. V. Chapter

6. Architecture, Patterns, and Mathematics

222 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

3.5 Complexity strategies
We have seen then how it is necessary, for the correct study of the city, to adopt a vision of networks
that coincides with the phenomenon of organized complexity, the city in reality. We must finally indi-
cate the three complexity strategies corresponding to a more suitable approach to that phenomenon,
for analysis and as a design tool and of course for observation and evaluation.
Surely, the most difficult strategy, but one of the three most important, is that of organizing com-
plexity. I believe that in order to realize this strategy we would have to use connectivity (complexity)
models of observation and evaluation and other new instruments for study, design and evaluation,
keeping in mind that the scientific model for knowing a phenomenon distinct from that studied will
also be new, and one will have to explore it with an open mind.
Concretely we will now form a relationship between the strategy of organizing complexity and the
strategies that we have dealt with in this chapter.
Organizing complexity is totally compatible with the strategic principles of environmental conserva-
tion. Reduction (optimization), re-use and recycling occur naturally in complex systems. Urban sys-
tems of organized complexity are no exception. In them processes emerge that help conserve the
environment simply because they are in harmony with it.
The organization of complexity is also strongly linked to spatial accessibility, principally by the holar-
chy characteristic of complex systems. This characteristic permits there to be many connections on the
smallest scale and fewer connections each time the scale increases. Spatial accessibility is maximized
in systems of organized complexity.
In urban systems of organized complexity there is open access to information that the environment
provides to residents and which we have called the collective memory of urban structures. The organi-
zation of complexity does not have any direct implication for access to information about probable
and possible futures for the community, but it certainly facilitates this by radically presenting more
channels of communication which communities, organize as ¨trees.¨ (Alexander, 1965)
It can also be said that accessibility to decision-making processes occurs in urban systems of organized
complexity through the process of emergence (Jacobs, Johnson, Salingaros), a concept that is very
closely linked to strategies of governance.
The organization of complexity is maximally strategic with regard to providing structures for the
development of local economic cycles, a phenomenon that also has to do with emergence and that
also links us to identity strategies such as that of the introduction of spirits of place and time to achieve
a local identity strategy.
Johnson (2002) has written “…like any emergent system, a city is a pattern in time. Cities have a latent
purpose: to function as information storage and retrieval devices. Cities were creating user-friendly
interfaces thousands of years before anyone even dreamed of digital computers. Cities bring minds
together and put them into coherent slots. Cities are a solution to the information interface problem,
both on the level of the collective and the individual. Cities store and transmit useful new ideas to
the wider population, ensuring that powerful new technologies don’t disappear once they’ve been
invented. But the self-organising clusters of neighbourhoods also serve to make cities more intelligible
to the individuals who inhabit them. Cities may function like libraries and interfaces, but they are not
built with that explicit aim.”
The organization of complexity has an important relationship to the use of language as a means of
communication. The language of the environment built on organized complexity is a language of pat-
terns which is the deepest level of the use of patterns, given that, according to new cognitive theories,
knowledge and the media for communicating it are closely linked to the organic processes of life.

Chapter 8: Connectivity strategies for the urban system 223

 Of course, organizing complexity in urban systems goes hand-in-hand with the vision of the city as a
system of networks, a necessary holarchic order, and implies the use of new models for observing and
evaluating complexity and connectivity.

3.5.1 Use of observation and evaluation models

To contribute to the achievement of the objective of applying a scientific model of complexity to the
phenomenon of organized complexity, we have proposed (Philibert, 2005) the strategic use of a model
of observation and evaluation, based on the theory of complex systems. The model that we have
developed can be strategic to facilitate decision-making in the combination of strategies that we have
mentioned in this chapter.
The model of observation and evaluation comes from the theory of the urban network which explains
the city to us as a network of nodes, their relationships and connections and what Nikos Salingaros,
their author, has called hierarchy, or the order of organization, but which perhaps it would be prefer-
able to call “holarchy.”
The theory of the urban network linked to the theory of complex systems derives from principles of
coherence that can be applied to the city. From the eight principles that Salingaros (2000) has estab-
lished, we have taken the first four as variables for observing and evaluating the model: connections
and diversity, which derive in turn from variable polarity; edges which derive from variable permeabil-
ity; and forces which derive from variable capillarity (see chapters 5 and 9).

4 Conclusions
Facing a network of key connectivity problems, a network of urban projects and, even more, a network
of key strategies have been juxtaposed. With regard to obstacles to connectivity, it seems that the key
problem is the dominant economic model to which is juxtaposed a connectivity strategy for a spatial
model. We do not refer here to fighting fire with fire, but rather combating simplicity with complex-
ity.
With regard to the three greatest obstacles and their corresponding strategies for achieving connec-
tivity, we can conclude the following:
The problem of fragmentation (as we have adapted it from articles prior to this work) is spatial but also
social, economic and environmental, and is juxtaposed against a key strategy of spatial accessibility to
information and to decision-making.
The problem of the impracticality of the economic model is juxtaposed against a strategy of competi-
tiveness, and:
The problem of empty simplicity with which the modern city grows, is juxtaposed against the key
strategy of organizing complexity.
There is much work to be done in order to change the growth paradigm of the built environment to the
reality of the true urban fabric with the three Aristotelian characteristics of the classic city: size, density
and heterogeneity, plus a fourth fundamental: organized complexity.

224 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

9 Design and Application of a Tool for Observation
and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity

Evaluation

1. Introduction
While chapter 5 dealt with theoretical concepts for observation and assessment of transversal con-
nectivity, in this chapter we document the application of these concepts to concrete cases, observing
transversal connectivity with a model based on GIS technology, and then making interventions with
a network of urban projects (discussed in chapter 7) and assessing the differences pointed out by the
model in a graphic interface.
This chapter starts by recalling the network science concepts adopted previously, namely the rules for
urban coherence in which the model for observation and assessment is based. This first part explains
in general, the designation of variables after the rules for urban coherence and how these variables are
networked to arrive to a resultant of transversal connectivity. There is an explanation for the concrete
application of concepts as nodal densities, potential polarity, visual permeability and capillarity that
leads to the graphic definition of transversal connectivity.
We then board on the explanation of the GIS model we devised to make the observation and evalua-
tion of transversal connectivity in an urban system. By translating the concepts into variables and then
again into graphic representations in a geographic information system, the explanation of the model
includes the procedures followed to produce maps of nodal densities, potential polarity, visual perme-
ability and capillarity to obtain a networked map of transversal connectivity in the end.
Networked maps are explained and defined as cartograms that are the graphic expression that results
from the programmed interpolation made by the GIS model of the variables described above and their
evaluation according to the criteria explained below.
At that point in the chapter, we make a recalling reflection of the general purpose of the thesis and
the essential meaning of three interrelated sets of concepts that are explored further, relating them
to the proposed notion of transversal connectivity and the tool provided by the GIS model, the TCC or
Transversal Connectivity Cartogram.
The chapter is devoted then to the explanation of the cases studied, where a brief general description
of the areas studied is included, the study of a ‘control area’ where there are empirically found condi-
tions of pedestrian connectivity and the cases studied in the Northern Arc area of Querétaro, that are
believed to be examples of urban entities that are typical in the diffuse and fragmented modern city: a
case of an urban stitch healing an urban fracture; the cases of a retail parking, an industrial brownfield
area and the cases of a gated community, a shopping mall and a linear park are presented.
The study of all these cases includes the observation of transversal connectivity before hypothetical
interventions by (networks of) urban projects and the evaluation after it, comparing connectivity con-
ditions with those of the control area, using the graphic interface we have called Transversal Connec-
tivity Cartogram or TCC.
One conclusion is that the use of cartograms as proposed may be useful for the decision-making actors
in urban planning and design. Further conclusions, remarks and possibilities for this model are dis-
cussed in the last part (Chapter 10) of this thesis.

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 225
 2 Network concepts applied to observation of transversal
connectivity
As explained in chapter 5, a series of variables was defined for the observation of transversal connec-
tivity in urban space. In this chapter we present some results of the observations made in the city of
Querétaro that has served as a laboratory, of the interaction of the variables derived from the first four
rules of coherence of a complex system.
We have proposed a theoretical explanation as a basis for the model devised for this part of the thesis,
and we have to add that the fundamental force behind those explanations is the conviction that there
is a need to allow organized complexity to “happen” again in the city and this might be our most
important motive. That is why we propose to study the city as a network, because the scientific para-
digm of networks might be able to deal better with an organized phenomenon that the city is, and
because there is also the conviction that by using networks we may better observe and assess connec-
tivity at its smaller scale in the city, transversal connectivity. This kind of connectivity is crucial for the
development of organized complexity in the city, which in turn provides not only livability or vitality
but also economic, social and even environmental benefits to civilization.
By applying network concepts to observation and assessment of transversal connectivity we believe to
be making a small contribution to the study of organized complexity and to provide citizens and actors
taking decisions on the form of the city with an objective, graphical tool for evaluating design.
However, to make a qualitative assessment, citizens and decision making actors should consider con-
nectedness a value. This can only happen on time by demonstrating a correlation of connectivity and
sustainability, a research task for the years to come, in which the modeling tool presented here, might
be helpful.

Before explaining the application of network concepts to the model of observation and assessment of
transversal connectivity, we have to recall the place where the laboratory has been settled: Querétaro
(v. chapter 6). (Ill. 182)

An area of study was defined in the northern border of the first ring of the city of Querétaro, the Arco
Norte Area, which is further analyzed in chapter 6. We worked in a frame in the scale of the 300m. This
area of the city was designated in the 60s for industrial uses that have been changing recently to resi-
dential and commercial isolated uses (gated communities, supermarkets with the car park at the front
and commercial malls)
This area was selected for its current low gross density and the fragmentation that the urban space
presents, but also for the potential of making interventions in it by urban projects to reconnect and
redensify it.
In our opinion, there are a number of other Latin-American cities with areas similar to the zone studied
here.
The application of network concepts to the model is as follows: (Ill. 183)

Nodal density
As we explained before (v. chapter 5), we have considered two basic types of nodes: the domestic,
which corresponds to the households and the social, that correspond to the rest of human activities
performed in a city. It is important to note that for connectivity to exist, it is necessary a given critical
mass of nodes of both types in a given area. This ratio corresponds to the quantity of nodes of a type
that exist in a given zone.

226 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 182. Area of study. INEGI, Mexico

Illustration 183. Diagram of the studied variables interaction. Diagram by Ernesto Philibert Petit

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 227
 The variety of domestic and social nodes is in function of the size of the city and its connectedness
with other networks. This way, we have established two distinct nodal densities in the area of study,
the domestic nodal density and the social nodal density.
The map of density of domestic nodes can be observed in figure 9.4 in which density is expressed from
lower to higher through a gamut of blue hue, from light to dark; locating the domestic nodes (house-
holds) according to the registered plot of the municipal cadastre and the gross densities by neighbor-
hood established by the official 2000 census. (Ill. 184)

In figure 184 the background of the urban space has been colored in red, this is streets, squares, etc. to
make evident their transversal connectivity afterwards. (Ill. 185)

In figure 185, the social nodal density is mapped together with the urban space (in white) with a dis-
tinction of qualities in the social nodes, be it public, semi-public or semi-private.
The public space is part of the network of social nodes and the social nodes can be, depending on their
scale, a bench in a park, a square in a park, the park itself, etc.

Potential polarity
The concept of potential polarity is an outcome of the interaction of rules for coherence of complex
systems numbers 1 (couplings) and 2 (diversity), which is the relationship between domestic nodal
density and social nodal density. Potential polarity is the capacity of a given urban space to generate
connections. (Ill. 186)

In an urban space in which there is only one type of node, as it is normal to happen in the mono-func-
tional planning schemes, polarity will be null or almost null. For potential polarity to exist there is a
number of nodes of both types (social and domestic) that have to exist in a given area. Polarity, or the
differentiation of two poles originates connectivity in a network, so this is a fundamental variable.
Figure 186 shows a zoned potential polarity in the areas that the nodes have been located. This figure
corresponds to the primitive zonal paradigm, so we decided to search for new graphic concepts as
the interaction of variables that is not evident in an image as figure 186). In this direction, we have
programmed the GIS to calculate the interpolation of variables and to display these interpolations in a
graphic with color gradients to make a map of the interactions or the potential relationships between
domestic and social nodes. We have called this potential interaction networked potential polarity
that is shown below in Illustration 187. In this Illustration, it is interesting to note the surge of “centers”
of interactivity that are emphasized by color and shadows. The zones in which there is potentially more
complexity and thus present better conditions for connectivity are displayed as “bubbles” . (Ill. 187)

Capillarity or transversal accessibility

Capillarity is the “easiness” with which a pedestrian may achieve transversal mobility in a given urban
roadspace. Capillarity can be total, when no obstacles for that mobility are found or null, when one or
more obstacles cancel the possibility of transversal movement. A number of intermediate ranges of
capillarity may be found in the urban space, depending on the accessibility (or the lack of it). A high
degree of capillarity allows the pedestrian to move between nodes easily; a low degree of capillarity
results from a series of obstacles like unleveled floors, car traffic and even physical obstacles that some-
times avoid or cancel the possibility of a transversal pedestrian displacement. As we said in chapter 5,
the degrees of capillarity decrease proportionally to the increase of vehicular speed in a roadspace.
Certainly, capillarity also has to do with the density of traffic on a given time combined with its speed.

228 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Illustration 184. Domestic nodal density
and roadspace. Cartogram by Fernando
Tovar Zamora-Plowes

Illustration 185. Social nodal density. Car-

togram by Fernando Tovar Zamora-Plowes

Illustration 186. Zoned potential polarity.

Cartogram by Fernando Tovar Zamora-
Plowes

Illustration 187. Networked potential polar-

ity. Cartogram by Fernando Tovar Zamora-
Plowes

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 229
 The maximum level of capillarity exists in an urban space with none or almost none vehicular traf-
fic and with mixed uses that provide appropriate densities of social and domestic nodes. As we will
explain below, we mapped capillarity in the roadspace associating it with “transparency” in the carto-
gram. A more opaque color screen of black corresponds proportionally to less capillarity; 100% black
color denotes null capillarity, whilst low values of black ink (0, 10, 20%) correspond to higher capillarity.
(Ill. 188, 189)

Visual permeability
Visual permeability has to do with the potential that the borders of the urban space have of “catch-
ing the sight” of pedestrians in a given urban roadspace. We can find a number of references in the
literature to the notion that the urban space is richer as rich is the information it transmits to the citizen
(Alexander, Jacobs, Johnson, Lynch, Salingaros, etc.), certainly not speaking of commercial informa-
tion or advertisement, its exacerbation contaminating urban space, but speaking more in the sense of
a way of preserving and transmitting the collective memory of cities and citizens in the form of urban
space and its interaction with citizens.
The reaches of this work do not include going deeper into this fascinating subject of study. For the
moment, we have designated the variable visual permeability as the ability of the borders of the urban
space of communicating with urban inhabitants as to preserve and build a spatial collective memory.
Visual permeability is coded in our model as the amount of information that the border of a given
urban space allows to be transmitted, either by openings to the space beyond it or by the spatial infor-
mation contained in its surface by the means of architectural features. (Ill. 190)

We designated degrees of visual permeability, as it will be explained below that are a factor, together
with capillarity of a more complex variable to study: transversal connectivity. (Ill. 191, 192, 193, 194)

Transversal connectivity
Finally, the concept of transversal connectivity in the urban space can be defined as the capacity of a
given space to allow connections in the scale of the pedestrian. It is integrated by the concurrence of
three sets of variables: potential polarity, capillarity and visual permeability. (Ill. 195)

The (zonal) geographic location of this interaction in the GIS is graphically expressed in Illustration 195
in which we can critique the lack of expression of complex interactions that an urban network has, and
even more in this case where there is a concurrence of a number of variables. The difference with Illus-
tration 196 is noteworthy, here we have programmed the GIS to make the mathematical interpolations
between the variables and the generation of potential centers of complexity is observed as in Illustra-
tion 187 but now conditioned to the features of capillarity and visual permeability that the urban space
may or may not have. (Ill. 196)

In Illustration 196 it can be observed how the urban space of low permeability and capillarity can
inhibit connectivity at the pedestrian scale, as in the case of the large surfaces of car parks in the com-
mercial ‘malls’ or simply in the case of the roads with high traffic, that represent unaffordable barriers
for the capacity of connection of the urban space.
Low permeability or null-permeability boundaries as in the case of the closed wall of the lot of the
factory in the center-south of our study area, cause the formation of urban islands that in Illustration
196 can be observed. The same happens with the closed boundaries of gated communities (to the

230 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

 Illustration 189. Capilarity cartogram of Queré-
taro. In this cartogram, low or null capilarity
appear as dark barriers and roadspace with high
capilarity has lighter colors. The graphic result-
ant is a map of barriers for the pedestrian in
the urban space. Cartogram by Fernando Tovar
Zamora-Plowes

Illustration 188. Road space with high capilarity Illustration 190. Visual permeability. The arcade
in the center of Querétaro. The frontage to the of the acueduct of Querétaro is a spatial bound-
right has a high visual permeability and lesser in ary with high visual permeability. Ernesto Philib-
the frontage to the left. Ernesto Philibert Petit ert Petit

Illustration 191. Roadspace with no capillarity Illustration 192. Roadspace with permeability
and no permeability. Ernesto Philibert Petit but no capillarity. A typical space built for the car.
Ernesto Philibert Petit

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 231
 right-south and center-north of the area of study). These impermeable boundaries notably inhibit con-
nectivity and this is made evident in Illustration 196.
In ulterior phases of this chapter the graphic interface of the system here presented will be used not
only for observation but also for evaluation of the potential conditions of connectivity when making

interventions in the area of study by means of a network of urban projects aiming to improve it.

Illustration 193. Roadspace with capillarity but Illustration 194. Capillarity and permeability in a
no permeability. Ernesto Philibert Petit roadspace. Ernesto Philibert Petit

Illustration 195. Zoned transversal connectivity. Illustration 196. Networked transversal connec-
Cartogram by Fernando Tovar Zamora-Plowes tivity. Cartogram by Fernando Tovar Zamora-
Plowes

232 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

3 A model for observation and assessment of transversal
connectivity

Metamobility Model filing card

A model devised to visualize in a GIS interface the potential interaction of networks of the urban
structure. The model is one answer to the questions:
How to study a city as a complex system? How to assess, going further than quantification, the quali-
ties of connections of the nodes in a given urban network?
How to assess urban projects taking into account that every intervention in the urban web has impli-
cations that affect the whole and not as an isolated entity?
Definitions and objectives
A model that allows to make comparisons on the quality of transversal connectivity, diversity and
complexity before and after the intervention in the urban web with specific urban projects.
A systematic and stable procedure of project evaluation with specific parameters and variables
that when spatialized, produce cartograms that symbolically show the nodal distribution, its
interactions, its borders and the connectivity between them in a pedestrian scale. Cartograms are
the outcome of the technological link between digital cartography and alphanumeric tables.
A model of observation and evaluation of transversal connectivity in urban spaces, based on
the theory of complex systems, aided by the technology of the Geographic Information Systems
(GIS).

Keywords: Nodal density, polarity, capillarity and transversal connectivity.

The model may be useful to observe different kinds of connectivity at different scales, bearing in mind
a principle of complex systems that we have been reiterating all over this thesis: “complex large- scale
wholes are assembled from tightly interacting subunits on many different levels of scale…”(Salingaros,
1998).
The model may detect the sometimes not so obvious differences between high density areas and
urban voids, as well as the influence that the vehicular roads have on pedestrian connectivity in a given
area.
For the use of our model, we have decided to work with dynamic scales in four of them (see chapter 3):
from the interpersonal scales (3 to 10m) to the neighborhood scale (100 to 300m).
The scale for the evaluation of a given project depends on the scale of the project itself and on the level
where connectivity is meant to be evaluated.
For the evaluation of projects and test of the model, we selected certain areas depending on the
amount of information available, on how representative of contemporary urban patterns (mostly of
fragmentation) the area is and also the availability of projects to be tested with the model.
We selected three fragmented areas within the Northern Arc district of the city of Querétaro (see chap-
ter 6) and a control area in the historic center of the same city to have a comparison since this contrast-
ing area presents (empirically) connectivity, diversity, and consolidation.

We will now move directly into a definition and classification of urban elements for observation and
assessment with our model. This definition of variables is more theoretically explained in chapter 5 so

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 233
 we will here present only the technical relationship between the elements and the model, this is, the
way the elements observed and assessed were incorporated in the model.

Nodal density concept

Based on the theory of networks, we make a map of the nodal density, either of social or domestic
nodes in a given urban area. We define nodal density as the amount of nodes of one kind in a given
urban area. Once we have mapped the densities of social and domestic nodes, we can program the GIS
software to make interpolations to map the potential polarity, this is, the possibilities of interactions of
the two kinds of nodes.

Social nodes
To make a classification of social nodes it is important to have a field study of the area and by simple
observation, classify them as follows:
Level 0
The housing or domestic nodes and clusters of nodes or modules should be classified with a 0 (zero)
value, because they are totally private and do not allow free access and do not promote public activi-
ties.
Level 1
These are the social nodes with less attractivity and correspond to the semi-private spaces. These are
mainly service nodes, with little concurrence of people, restricted opening hours and conditioned
entrance. In this classification we have placed schools, offices, etc.
Level 2
This level is about semi-public nodes that are defined by having free access, only limited by a timeta-
ble. In this level we find commercial spaces and some other service, temples, etc.
Level 3
This is the level with the nodes of the higher attractivity, public nodes. Here we have classified all the
nodes of free access that do not require any permission to be accessed. We have here classified the
streets, plazas and the public nodes within them, such as benches, public telephones, kiosks, foun-
tains, etc.
The social nodes are represented in warm colors starting from yellow for level 1 to red for level 3.

Domestic nodes
For the classification of domestic nodes, we have used basic criteria of density. We decided to desig-
nate each node a value equal to the gross density (ratio of population and area), divided by the average
inhabitants per house (4.6) calculated in the 2000 census. The result is the nodal density, considering
every average home a node of houses in a given area.
We have to point out that the domestic nodes clustered in areas of high domestic nodal density are
alike the level 2 of social nodes because within the clusters, higher levels of pedestrian connectivity
starts to be present.
Domestic nodes are represented in blue, from light blue for low domestic nodal density and dark blue
for high domestic nodal density.

234 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

numerical values assigned for potential polarity

Value Activity Description

50 Social, public Every node with no restrictions for
access or use at any time. No cost.
Kiosks, benches, fountains, etc
40 Social, semi-public Nodes with open to public activities
but with restrictions of any kind. Cost,
timetables, age, gender and other.
Restaurants, theatres, cinemas, gated
parks, etc.
30 Social, semi-private Social activity node where a commer-
cial or service activity is performed, with
access limited and controlled.
Offices, schools, industries, etc.
20 Mixed uses activity Any nodes that contain social activity
and domestic activity simultaneously.
18 Domestic, highest gross density Domestic or housing nodes in which
basic activities for life are performed,
generally around a family nucleus.
Gross density (ratio of population
and area), divided by the average
inhabitants per house. In the case of
Querétaro, values range from 2 to 200
inhabitants per hectare.
2 Domestic, lowest gross density
0 Urban voids Spaces with no infrastructure or use.
-5 Visual obstacles, visual poverty Elements that are visually unattractive
or insecure.
-10 Physical obstacles Elements that are physical obstacles to
pedestrian mobility.
-15 Visual and physical obstacles, visual Elements that are visually unattrac-
poverty tive and are obstacles to pedestrian
mobility.

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 235
 Mixed activity nodes
These nodes have the highest value of domestic activity and the lowest (1) of social activity. The clas-
sification of a node into this category should contain the information of domestic density. The mixed
activity nodes are represented in the model in green color.
Potential polarity
We have established an arbitrary scale to order the nodes according to their degree of potential polar-
ity.
The highest value of polarity (50) is assigned to the level 3 social nodes; the next value (40) is assigned
to the level 2 social nodes; a smaller value (30) is assigned to to the level 1 social nodes. As an interme-
diate level between social and domestic activities, the value 20 is assigned for the mixed uses nodes
and finally we assign the smallest values of potential polarity to the domestic nodes (from 19 to 2)
depending on their gross density. The urban voids are given a value of 0 (zero) because they do not
generate any kind of attraction.
There are places in the urban web that besides of not propitiating human activity, impede it, such
as barriers and obstacles. These areas have no information to share with the citizens; they should be
evaluated accordingly with negative values. These values range from -1 to -15.
After a simple observation field study as pedestrians, the -5 value is given to the visually “poor” nodes
that confer the feeling of danger and insecurity like leaning walls, garbage, etc; the -10 value is for the
elements that are obstacles for pedestrians and the value -15 was given to nodes or elements that are
obstacles and area objectively dangerous such as buildings in progress.
This evaluation allowed us to establish a scale that embodies all kinds of pedestrian activity in its dif-
ferent realms domestic, mixed or social. All the values should be included in the same scale of potential
polarity because all of them have an influence on their surroundings. This reinforces the conception of
complex systems, where feedback cycles exist, and every element in the system has influence and is
influenced on/by the others.

Capillarity
Capillarity is here understood as the potential of the space for the pedestrian to walk through it, espe-
cially in the transversal direction. It is one of the factors that define transversal connectivity, along with
visual permeability. To evaluate capillarity on must conceive the street not as a unifilar (one thread)
axis, but as a public space with the capability of allowing transversal connections within it.
We have to point out that squares, gardens and parking lots are not considered nodes of activity and
are classified as roadspace. Thus, a plaza is evaluated as a pedestrian area and a parking lot is evaluated
in the best of the cases, as a local street.

Visual permeability
This is the second factor that determines transversal connectivity, along with the capillarity of a given
urban space.
The value range of visual permeability goes from 0 to 1 so that when multiplied by the value of capil-
larity of a space we can obtain a value for transversal connectivity and place it in the GIS. Visual per-
meability is understood here as the wealth of visual connections in the two flanks of a roadspace.
This information has a direct impact in the way the pedestrian is related to the roadspace, due to the
quantity, quality and coherence of the visual information that the pedestrian receives and is also deter-
minant in the way that the pedestrian transits through the urban space. The degrees of visual per-
meability were established by observation in the field, so one must take into account that any given

236 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Numerical values assigned for capillarity

Capillarityvalue Urbanelements Description

0 Unsurpassable barriers Roads that cannot be crossed, with
high speed, three or more lanes, with
clear obstacles such as fences. In the
area studied in Querétaro, the Boul-
evard Bernardo Quintana is an example
of this kind of element.
1 Primary avenues Avenues with metropolitan traffic. Two
or more lanes and speeds of 60 to 80
km/h with or without median and with
limited points for pedestrian crossing.
Epigmenio González Avenue is an
example in the area studied.
2 Secondary avenues Streets and avenues that connect
primary avenues, two or more lanes
and speeds from 40 to 60 km/h
3 Connecting streets They form the majority of the road-
space of the city. They are streets with
only one direction, with a maximum of
two lanes.
4 Local streets Low speed and traffic streets that serve
to connect an specific area. Found
within gated communities.
5 Pedestrian areas Areas where vehicular traffic is not
allowed or restricted as in the case of
certain spots of the control area.

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 237
 roadspace may have different degrees of visual permeability in its flanks and that visual permeability
varies along the street.

Cartograms
Cartograms are the graphic expression that results from the interpolation made by the GIS model of all
of the variables described above and their evaluation according to the criteria explained. These graph-
ics involve geographic information and data associated to each graphical element. Cartograms allow
us to visualize the urban variables involved (according to the rules for urban coherence explained in
chapter 5) and their relations and interactions, and what perhaps is most significant, their mutual influ-
ence.
In our GIS model we have three different kinds of cartograms and a screen (the visual permeability plus
capillarity screen):

• Cartogram of domestic and social nodal interaction, where we can observe the spatial distribution
of nodes and their diversity in a given area. This cartogram could be analogous to the Nolli map of
an urban area.

• Cartogram of potential polarity, where we can read the possibilities of interaction of the two dif-
ferent kinds of poles studied, domestic and social. The cartogram is an image interpretation of a
network, not a direct visualization of it. It was devised to represent the potential of complexity
that an urban area has because of the potential links that could exist between social and domestic
nodes.

These cartograms are obtained from an interpolation formula set in the GIS that is defined as the gen-
eration of a numerical sequence between two values separated spatially. In this way one can visualize
the relations between all the nodes under the principle of inter-influence between them. The formula
of interpolation was set after the “curve of emergence” formula proposed by Nikos Salingaros in his
theoretical work.

• Cartogram of transversal connectivity, where we can evaluate the potential pedestrian connec-
tivity in a given area, regardless of the physical conditions of the roadspace. We then must add
another element to have a better reading of the connectivity conditions.

Screen of permeability and capillarity. It is a graphic concept of transparency and opacity. The screen
is overlapped to the cartogram of transversal connectivity. The roadspace is considered here more
transparent where it presents the best conditions for pedestrian connectivity, i.e. in a plaza or pedes-
trian street with clear borders and clear information on them; the screen is more opaque where the
worst conditions for pedestrian connectivity exist, such as in an urban motorway, the ultimate urban
fracture.

In this way, cartograms break up the scheme of Cartesian visualization through zones; they allow obser-
vation and assessment based on a network paradigm and rules and principles of complex systems.

Cartograms are interpreted according to graphical information generated by symbolization by colors;

the perception of “height” is generated by the GIS correspondingly to higher potential of interaction
or potential of complexity, depressed areas correspond to negative values of potential for complexity
(“holes” in a network) and the “screen of permeability and capillarity” is made out of a dot-screen with

238 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

visual permeability values in a roadspace

Value Roadspacefeatures Description

0 With borders that totally block Tunnels, walls or highways with

visibility. no boundary so that there are
no reference points for the
pedestrian.
0.25 With barriers or borders, with Streets with lined-tree medians,
only a few points of visual con- blind walls or fences, vacant
tact on or beyond the border. lots.
0.5 Visual connection with borders Streets with flanks with visual
and some points of visual con- connections but with little or
tact on or beyond the border. no relevance, such as uniform
or repetitive facades with no
clear borders, like parking lots
in the front.
0.75 With borders and much visual Streets that in spite of the fact
connection however with some of having a good visual connec-
obstacles. tion, present some obstacles.
It may be also the case of the
spaces where there is informa-
tion but it is not relevant for the
pedestrian as in a way to gener-
ate interest.
1 With borders with a good visual Plazas or corridors with a great
connection. diversity of visual nodes in
which the pedestrian can clearly
read spatial information.

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 239
 zero dot-density for the most transparent values and with 100% dot-density or opaqueness for the
least transparency values.

4 Transversal connectivity assessed

As a result of the interaction of the formerly described variables, based on the theory of complex sys-
tems and rules of coherence, we are able to make an evaluation of the transversal connectivity of the
urban space with the use of cartograms from the GIS model.

Before presenting the cases studied, we want to make a reflection on the general purpose of this work
and the means to achieve it.
We have proposed that a network of urban projects can connect the fragmented city as a general
working hypothesis; we then made a delimitation of the notion of connection (and consequently the
notions of connectedness and connectivity) to the smallest scale workable in the urban realm, the
pedestrian scale, proposing the concept of “transversal connectivity” as the connection of mobility
and information to smaller scales. We then turned to the development of a GIS model to be able to
make observations and evaluations of transversal connectivity in the urban space, also with the idea of
making an assessment of interventions in the urban space by the means of specific urban projects.
In the general working hypothesis, there are three interrelated sets of concepts that we wish to explore
further at this point, relating them to the proposed notion of transversal connectivity and the tool
provided by the GIS model, the TCC or Transversal Connectivity Cartogram.

Fragmented city
This is the starting point of this thesis. The fact that the city has become more and more fragmented
in its fundamental network, the pedestrian network and the notion that this fact is affecting the social,
economic and environmental sustainability of the city as we have known it for circa eight thousand
years (see chapter 2).
There is a specific type of cartogram that can make this fragmentation of the pedestrian network evi-
dent mostly in cases of modernist cities. By representing the vehicular roads as more or less unsurpass-
able obstacles (as they are) for pedestrian mobility by the means of “transparency”, one can evaluate
the potential of a given urban space of developing spatial pedestrian connectivity. Cartograms made
in the research process of a large area of the city of Querétaro showed us the poor conditions of the
urban space outside the Centro Histórico for pedestrian connectivity. (Ill. 197)
We present this cartogram as a graphic evidence of this kind of fragmentation in the city. Urban spaces
in a city should be all connected by a pedestrian network and we present evidence that this is not the
case in the city of Querétaro.

Urban projects that connect

We believe that the problem of fragmentation in the city can be addressed and solved by design, by
the intervention with specific urban projects. We understand urban projects as a networked interven-
tion in many scales in a given urban space, because we should bear in mind the holarchic organization
of a complex system.
The cartograms can be a useful tool for observation and evaluation of the conditions of (pedestrian)
connectivity in many scales and can prove to be even more useful when they are a tool for relatively
easily simulate the intervention with urban projects in the urban space. Urban projects are normally

240 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 197. Cartogram of pedestrian connec- Illustration 198. Tomographic reconstruction
tivity outside the Centro Histórico. Cartogram by method of gas density distribution by fast elec-
Fernando Tovar Zamora-Plowes tron beam attenuation measurements is devel-
oped. www.itam.nsc.ru/lab17/)

evaluated with more or less precision in terms of its economic impact or in terms of its environmental
impact, but generally considered only as isolated objects with little or no regard of the impact that they
generate in a network. The cartograms can help to change this perspective, gaining in a network vision
of the impacts. Cartograms could be programmed to spatialize social, environmental and economic
networked effects of a given intervention but, for the scope of this thesis, we only use the cartograms to
observe and evaluate the changes that urban projects bring in the case of pedestrian connectivity.

Networks, transversal connectivity and cartograms

We have proposed networks and network science as an approach to the urban phenomenon (see
chapter 5). The main reason for this, the consideration of the city as an organized complexity prob-
lem (Jacobs, Johnson, Salingaros) and the recognition that the Cartesian analytical and the stochastic
scientific approaches to the study of the city have not been able to produce full understanding of the
phenomenon and have proposed partial (and thus, inefficient) solutions for the problems posed in
such a context.
With the same fashion where we propose that urban projects should be conceived as ‘networked’, we
also put forward the idea that transversal connectivity is a (basic) feature of the urban network and so,
the cartogram has been devised to represent not a complex network directly, but a graphic diagnosis
of the interaction that a complex network may produce as in the specific case of spatial and infor-
mational mobility of people within the urban space. The notion of a graphic diagnosis is frequently
applied in other fields of science such as medicine as in the application of computerized tomography
like in Illustration 198. (Ill. 198)

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 241
 5 Cases of urban interventions assessed with the model

Brief general description of the areas studied

We have situated all of the study cases in the area called Northern Arc, described in chapter 6 and
selected as a test bed for the network of connective urban projects illustrated in chapter 7. The selec-
tion of the area obeys to the fact that generally speaking, it is one of the most fragmented areas within
the first perimeter in the city and presents currently a very low gross density. As we said before, it is
an archipelago of isolated elements. Yet, we chose the area because it presents a good “catalogue” of
opportunities for intervention in favor of connectivity in cases that are somehow typical in the Latin
American modernist city. We could find in the area the chance of proposing an urban stitch, a transver-
sal project over an urban motorway; in the area there is a large area devoted to retail parking that could
be redeveloped; this was also a possibility in the case of the industrial brownfield (Industria del Hierro)
that was an abandoned industry plot that has recently started to redevelop (2005) in the form of two
office buildings that do not add much connectivity to the structure, with quite different results of con-
nectivity than the project we had proposed since 2004 of a mixed-use development. We will observe
and assess the connectivity conditions in both.
In the area, there are also two other typically fragmenting structures of the city of the second half of
the 20th Century: a shopping mall and residential gated communities. It has also two other interesting
features: the opportunities for establishing new connections in the form of pedestrian bridges and
for developing pedestrian connectivity by making simple interventions to assemble an urban linear
park.
The projects were conceived as a means for achieving higher densities, both domestic and social
(mixed uses) but most of all to improve the existing connective conditions at the pedestrian scale:
transversal connectivity.

Control area: Centro Histórico

The central sector of the city of Querétaro is better known as Centro Histórico. Its foundation dating
1531, this historic town maintained its population of about 50,000 people since the beginning of the
17th Century to the middle of the 20th. Three hundred years of evolution over time have helped the
Centro Histórico to earn the appointment of World Heritage by the UNESCO.
There is a high degree of transversal connectivity in this area as a result of an existing density of domes-
tic and social nodes as well as its mix of uses and certainly its capillarity (with an outstanding connect-
edness between social spaces as well) and visual permeability. This is an area that we have designated
as “control area”, purposely to observe its patterns of transversal connectivity (or patterns of complex-
ity) and to compare them with the patterns of transversal connectivity of the areas to be intervened,
before and after the intervention and to aid in a qualitative assessment of the interventions proposed.
(Ill. 199)

This area comprises (see f 199) a square of 300 by 300 meters,

oriented along the urban grid, which contains a plaza (6), a pedestrian street and important com-
mercial corridor (4), mixed residential and commercial areas, and with very few urban voids or unused
buildings. This area is a node of social encounter and scenery of public events. The roadspace in this
area is rather narrow with low speed vehicular traffic and with wide areas for pedestrian use, which
propitiates capillarity. The streets here have little or no obstacles for the pedestrian and allow, by their
configuration and scale, a good visual permeability.

242 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 199. Control area. Centro Histórico. Illustration 200. Domestic nodal density, by
Photocomposition by Nuria Hernández Amador zones. Cartogram by Fernando Tovar Zamora-
Plowes. Photocomposition by Nuria Hernández
Amador

Illustration 201. Social nodal density, by zones. Illustration 202. Cartogram of polarity and trans-
Cartogram by Fernando Tovar Zamora-Plowes. versal connectivity in the control area. Cartogram
Photocomposition by Nuria Hernández Amador by Fernando Tovar Zamora-Plowes. Photocom-
position by Nuria Hernández Amador

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 243
 We have taken this area as an example of what we recognize as a well-connected urban space.
In this control area, there are public spaces surrounded of social nodes and commercial corridors.
There is a great variety of social nodes and there is not a clustering of the domestic. The pattern of
complexity graphicated by our model is a reference for the assessment of urban projects in other areas
of the city.
In Illustration 200 residential or domestic areas are shown, classified by their intensity, corresponding
to the intensity of the color of the zone. This is the same as with Illustration 201, that depicts the areas
(zones) of different social nodes. We have to say here again that these two cartograms are not express-
ing a real interaction between many variables as in the case of Illustration 202, which is a cartogram
with the interpolation of social and domestic nodes in the area. The pattern in Illustration 202 is a pat-
tern of complexity existing in an area that presents a desirable level of connectedness. (Ill. 200, 201,
202)
This Illustration shows an interpolation of the variables studied. On one hand there is the potential
polarity, a concurrence between social and domestic nodal densities. This interpolation is depicted
as bubbles of interaction between those two sets of nodes. The cartogram also illustrates the trans-
versal connectivity that exists in the streets, which might allow the potential polarity to be converted
into actual polarity, with expected and observable positive results of transversal connectivity.

Study case 1: Urban stitch

In the sector of the city where this project is proposed a commercial node has taken place in the form
of large retail stores. (Ill. 203)

with the parking lot at the front (1, 4); automobile retailers (2), what used to be a suburban motel (3), a
public park (10), residential monofunctional areas (5), urban voids (8), a pluvial water canal(7), a gaso-
line station (6) and a university campus (9). As it can be observed all these peaces function disjointed
in the pedestrian scale, linked only by vehicular roads and what is even more fragmenting, traversed
by an urban motorway, Boulevard Bernardo Quintana.
By simple observation Boulevard Bernardo Quintana is along its extension is an almost unsurpassable
barrier that does not allow pedestrian accessibility and visual permeability and has points of conflict
with other vehicular avenues and provokes vehicular congestion. The buildings along Boulevard Ber-
nardo Quintana are very low, considering the 60 meter width of the avenue. There is also a very low
density both social and domestic in this area.
The plots used for this proposal are the ones of the urban void (8) and the motel (3).
The proposal consists of a couple of high-rise buildings with a height equal to the width of the avenue
(60m). In the plot of the motel, a large hotel tower is developed based upon a commercial center. In
the urban void, an apartment tower is developed above offices and commerce in the lower floors. The
mix of uses will convert both buildings in strong activity nodes, both social and domestic.
Responding to the lack of transversal connectivity caused by the boulevard, this project proposes a
pedestrian bridge that will connect both buildings and the park (10), the commercial center (1), the
university campus (9) in a fluid way, permitting the integration of pedestrian from both sides of the
boulevard. The pedestrian bridge has a special feature: it has commercial areas along its span at both
of its sides. This propitiates transversal connectivity within it, at a smaller scale than the one achieved
by the bridge itself in the boulevard. (Ill. 204, 205)

Observation and assessment

When comparing this intervention to the control area, it is evident the difference in the gradient of
transversal connectivity in both areas. In the Centro Histórico there are no such strong barriers as

244 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 203. Context of the study case. Photo- Illustration 204. Urban stitch project. Photocom-
composition by Nuria Hernández Amador position by Nuria Hernández Amador

Illustration 205. Urban stitch project. Views. Pho- Illustration 206. Observation and assessment.
tocomposition by Nuria Hernández Amador Cartogram and photocomposition by Nuria
Hernández Amador

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 245
 the boulevard. However the urban stitch project bridges as well the connectivity barrier in the urban
space and opens the possibility of healing the urban tissue. There are changes observable before and
after the intervention: Note how the area of the park changes from a semi-private status to a semi
public, only by connecting at this point). (Ill. 206)

Study case 2: Retail parking

A large urban plot along the boulevard, in front of the park was originally designated for industrial
use in the 60s. Thirty years after, the land use changed to lodge commercial activities in the form of
a large retail store and its subsidiaries (1, 5). The stores were built in the back of the plot and a large
parking area was left at the front, the typical commercial scheme of the suburban North-America. To
the South of this development, a number of industrial warehouses have been changing functions
into small retail stores, restaurants or housing in the form of small gated communities (7, 3, 2, 4, 10 in
Ill. 207).
Even though this is a developed area it is highly fragmented at the pedestrian scale. In this area there
is only one pedestrian bridge that connects the parking areas of the park (12 in f207) and the com-
mercial areas, but having a very low density of activity nodes, the bridge has become dangerous and
seldom used
A few left over areas with greenery are located in this area, mostly dislocated from the whole as many
of the other constituents mentioned before. The warehouses located here provoke large urban voids
with their parking areas that are defensive from if not aggressive to the pedestrian. They have become
no-man’s land in terms of pedestrian connectivity. The commercial areas are thus segregated from
the urban tissue; it does not promote neither mix of uses nor social conviviality. The light industry
areas are currently under-utilized; there is a trend of reconversion or to become again large urban
voids in favor of speculation. (Ill. 208)

The main objectives of this urban intervention were the redensification of the whole by using the
parking areas of the commercial retail centers and the light-industry areas; to establish an urban
frontal strip to the boulevard that would function as a boundary, with height in a more adequate
proportion to the width of the boulevard; the generation of different housing typologies that would
promote social mix and interaction; to achieve a balance between the spaces for the use of the car
and spaces for the pedestrian, which would result into an improvement of the connectivity condi-
tions in the area and the urban image at the boulevard.
The main features of the project proposed in this area include the increase of density, filling urban
voids and relocating part of the commercial areas in the ground floor of the front to the boulevard
and the primary avenue to the south (7 in f207). The intervention does not include the housing area
to the west and is limited to the existing voids. The area is connected to the park at the same points
where the pedestrian bridge is proposed to be renovated, with the inclusion of commercial uses
along it. A commercial strip of itinerant modules and a café is proposed in the border of the park,
generating social nodes. The street structure for the project is an almost orthogonal grid, formed by
secondary streets. Inside the project, there is another grid basically for pedestrian use and low-speed
traffic. Four types of housing are introduced in this project, all of them looking forward to promot-
ing the mixed use of land by including commercial or other services programs in their ground floors.
More descriptive material can be found in chapter 7.

Observation before intervention (Ill. 209)

The area studied presents a very low complexity cartogram because it is divided into differentiated
use zones of only one function and it is fragmented by the boulevard to the north. It is noticeable how

246 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 207. Context of the retail parking. Illustration 208. Retail parking project. Photo-
Photocomposition by Nuria Hernández Amador composition by Nuria Hernández Amador

Illustration 209. Observation and assessment. Illustration 202. Cartogram of polarity and trans-
Cartogram and photocomposition by Nuria versal connectivity in the control area. Cartogram
Hernández Amador by Fernando Tovar Zamora-Plowes. Photocom-
position by Nuria Hernández Amador

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 247
 low the transversal connectivity is in the cartogram also because of the gated community to the east
and the large parking lot of the commercial center, this means we have a rather “opaque” cartogram
and the gated community looks like a “hole” in the urban system.

Assessment after intervention

Once the project is positioned and studied in the cartogram, we can assess connectivity by first, com-
paring to the “before” cartogram and second, by comparing with the control area cartogram.
The first comparison makes evident the increase in “complexity bubbles” in the area intervened; how-
ever, the gated community area loses even more connectedness and decays to a larger and more evi-
dent “hole”. It is interesting to note that the holes in the area become more intensely pointed out when
contrasting with a more complex area like the one in the intervention.
When comparing the cartogram with the control area, it appears that the complexity bubbles are
smaller and more frequent than in the Centro Histórico. This means that densities and interactions are
higher in the area intervened, which might not be a desirable result of the intervention. An “excessive”
complexity is observed in the area when the insertion is assessed and this may propitiate the area to
become chaotic. (Ill. 202)

We propose as a preliminary conclusion that the assessment of urban projects with our model may
bring positive results or in this case, areas of opportunity to improve the development when it is still
at the project level. This way, the project can be adapted accordingly to the patterns of complexity the
designer and the deciding actors want to follow.

Study case 3: Industrial brownfield

While it was still in functions, Industria del Hierro was a strong node of activity, however within an area
that has always been isolated from the surroundings because of a massive exterior boundary wall.
This large factory had warehouses for production and storage, offices, green areas and a radioactive
technology soldering workshop that has produced a certain level of pollution of the underground,
converting the area in a “brownfield”. (Ill. 210)

When Industria del Hierro cut its operations in Querétaro in the early 90s, the workshop was closed
and sealed and its demolition or use was forbidden. Fifteen years after, at the beginning of 2005, it was
monitored by experts and declared to be safe for use or demolition and ten months later, a develop-
ment has been built on the area, two large office buildings belonging to the huge Mexican telephone
company, Telmex.
In the 60s, the area was only industrial, and with time, it has been surrounded by popular housing
developments (6), a private residential development (5). It is limited to the north by Avenida Epig-
menio González (7) which is a primary avenue.
The two large telephone company office buildings are still under construction, so we are presenting
here the observation and assessment of a hypothetical project and of the one currently under con-
struction (see Ill. 211)

Observation before intervention

The cartogram made before inserting any building in the area, shows clearly a “black hole” in the city
structure. It was really an empty area that blocks connectivity in many senses. In the cartogram it
appears like an almost black area with a white bubble, result of the empty warehouses.

248 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 210. Context of the industrial brown- Illustration 211. Observation and assessment of
field. Photocomposition by Nuria Hernández the office buildings intervention. Cartogram by
Amador Fernando Tovar Zamora-Plowes. Photocomposi-
tion by Nuria Hernández Amador

Illustration 212. Observation and assessment Illustration 202. Cartogram of polarity and trans-
of the proposal. Cartogram by Fernando Tovar versal connectivity in the control area. Cartogram
Zamora-Plowes. Photocomposition by Nuria by Fernando Tovar Zamora-Plowes. Photocom-
Hernández Amador position by Nuria Hernández Amador

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 249
 Assessment, after the office buildings intervention (Ill. 212, 202)
With the insertion of the two office buildings, complexity bubbles start to appear in a very punctual
pattern, certainly very different from the pattern found in the control area and more alike to patterns
of insertion in monofunctional zoning. The cartogram shows that the black area has a slightly lighter
gray color and the isolation and lack of transversal connectivity persists. If the exterior boundary wall
should be removed or at least pierced, visual permeability should improve as the cartogram shows.
We can also note that the vitality brought by the two buildings will exist only within the development,
not contributing with transversal connectivity to the city. This is something that could be assessed and
modified in any given urban project.

Proposal
This urban void was one of the largest in the Northern Arc area. Its border a massive boundary wall has
negative impact in the visual permeability and thus in the transversal connectivity of the area. It is a
desolated street after hours and as shown in the diagnostic cartogram, the area is a hole in the urban
fabric.
The hypothetical proposal (project) assessed here (see chapter 7 for a more detailed description)
includes a program to redensify the area, generating social and domestic nodes, trying to obtain simi-
lar complexity patterns to those of the control area.

Assessment, after the project insertion

The change from the previous cartogram and the one to assess the hypothetical project is very note-
worthy. Complexity bubbles appear in the second cartogram in a very similar pattern to the one in
the control area cartogram (right). The red bubbles indicate a maximization of public nodes which
increase transversal connectivity. There is also a good balance of blue (domestic), green (mixed uses)
and yellow-orange (semi public and semi private nodes) that is present in the cartogram. What used
to be a median garden in the primary avenue, has now converted into a public, linear park (in red) and
the project opens to connections with the housing areas in the west and south.
By using the model we can assess the potential transversal connectivity of the project and its similarity
with complexity patterns in the control area, which was one of the objectives of the program for this
project.
We can also compare the connectivity results of the two large office buildings intervention in the area
with those obtained from the assessment of the hypothetical project. We believe that the difference in
the cartograms may help the deciding actors in the city-making process to promote connectivity.

Three more cases: gated community, shopping mall and linear park (Ill. 213)
The next three cases are concentrated in the northeastern section of the Northern Arc. This area
presents well-defined barriers, being the boulevard to the north the most obvious. The primary
avenue Epigmenio González is also another important barrier for pedestrian connectivity. Constituent
parts of this area and studied cases are a residential gated community (5), a shopping mall divided by
an inner street (1, 2), a green median with potential for reconversion into a linear park (7) and the area
of articulation (8) between the shopping mall and a hotel (3) in which we have inserted a project of a
pedestrian bridge.

These urban entities, belonging to types so common in the city of to-day are surrounded by high-traf-
fic vehicular avenues, a situation that enhances their disconnection in the pedestrian scale.

250 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 213. Context of the gated community, Illustration 214. Design proposals. Cartogram
shopping mall and linear park. Photocomposi- and photocomposition by Nuria Hernández
tion by Nuria Hernández Amador Amador

Illustration 215. Observation and assessment.

Gated community. Cartogram by Fernando Tovar
Zamora-Plowes. Photocomposition by Nuria
Hernández Amador

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 251
 Design proposals
The intervention in these areas is directed to increase gross density, mix uses, and improve pedestrian
(transversal) connectivity; to revitalize the asphalt areas of the shopping mall and most of all, to bridge
the gaps that the urban avenues pose to the pedestrian.
The proposal in the area of Jacarandas includes the piercing of the perimeter wall, by using commercial
modules (see chapter 7) that connect both sides of the wall. The largest opening is proposed in the
southeastern corner (5) of the gated community, inserting a plaza with a café, a fountain and several
commercial modules of urban furniture that act as attraction nodes. (Ill. 214)

In the perimeter of the shopping mall, we propose to build an urban strip with mixed uses (2), visually
permeable at the ground floor, with commercial use and topped by one or two stories of housing in
the form of apartments. The current shopping area fashionable to the 70s and 80s design trend is left
intact in principle. However, we have the idea that an intervention as the one proposed would eventu-
ally make the old building to disappear for the sake of a change.
In the Epigmenio González avenue, the proposal is to configure a linear park and provide vitality with a
bicycle lane, commercial itinerant modules, more trees and changes in the treatments of the pavement
to reduce vehicular speed and foster the access of pedestrians to the area.
In the articulation area mentioned (8), a pedestrian bridge has been inserted, connecting the two com-
mercial areas: the mall and the hotel. The existing roundabout will be converted into a gardened plaza.
The project for the bridge includes commercial nodes along its two sides.
The GIS image on the right depicts the transversal connectivity conditions before and after the inter-
ventions in the areas of the gated community (left) and the contiguous shopping mall. The poor
pedestrian interaction between these two entities is modified by the interventions proposed. Also it is
noticeable that the conditions of visual permeability and capillarity improve in the streets surrounding
them.
Next, a particular description of the observation and assessment of transversal connectivity in these
two areas:

Study case 4: Gated community

The gated community “Jacarandas” is surrounded by a perimeter wall that has become a dangerous
border for pedestrian transit, due to its impermeability, which provokes desolation and segments the
community from the rest of the urban tissue. This is a case that is recurrent in many cities these days
(see chapter 2). The wall does not permit any sense of contact and protection for the pedestrian. The
community has only one (guarded) entrance. (Ill. 215)

The image on the left depicts the gated community as a hole (in network terms), as an area with streets
with good potential for transversal connectivity because of their permeability and capillarity but
empty because of the lack of complexity (or potential polarity) surrounded by four streets with very-
low transversal connectivity, due to its null visual permeability and a very low capillarity in the north-
ern and southern avenues and low in the case of the streets to the east and west. The only piercing in
the wall, the entrance at the east-side shows a shy sign of vitality in the GIS model. The rest of the area
looks like a hole in the urban network, with smaller holes or craters in the surface of the cartogram.
The image on the right shows the community after the first intervention. It is noticeable how the com-
plexity bubbles appear immediately in the southeastern corner when making the intervention pro-
posed.

252 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Illustration 214. Design proposals. Cartogram Illustration 202. Cartogram of polarity and trans-
and photocomposition by Nuria Hernández versal connectivity in the control area. Cartogram
Amador by Fernando Tovar Zamora-Plowes. Photocom-
position by Nuria Hernández Amador

Illustration 216. Linear park before. Cartogram by Fernando Tovar Zamora-Plowes. Photocomposition by
Nuria Hernández Amador

Illustration 217. Linear park after intervention. Cartogram by Fernando Tovar Zamora-Plowes. Photocom-
position by Nuria Hernández Amador

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 253
 Transversal connectivity conditions in the street at the east improve as well by the intervention with
an urban mixed use strip across the street. The project could certainly be improved by piercing more
openings in the community’s wall. Note that the complexity bubbles do not cross the street on the
west of the development because of the lack of permeability and also compare the increase of con-
nectivity that a couple of perforations can bring to the street on the east. With the model, design can
be aided by assessing transversal connectivity in small as well as in medium or large interventions in
the urban realm.

Study case 5: shopping mall

In the shopping mall there are currently two large gray parking lots, paved with an impervious material,
asphalt. This gives to the development the form and function of an island in the middle of a automo-
bile sea. The border of the area has not a façade for delimitation and character; instead, the industrial-
like buildings for the two large retail stores give the mall a poor urban image. (Ill. 214, 202)
Illustration 214 above, depicts transversal connectivity in the current situation of the shopping mall
(up). It looks like an island surrounded by very low transversal connectivity colors (medium gray) and
null transversal connectivity avenues. Again, an area fragmented in the pedestrian scale from the rest
of the city. There is low or almost none complexity bubbles due to its monofunctional use and a major
attractor can be identified in the bubble to the southwest, where a large retail store is located; a very
typical situation in our cities.
When loading the intervention proposed in the GIS model, the change in transversal connectivity is
immediately evident (f 214 down). The urban mixed uses strip provides complexity bubbles around the
development and allow, by its ground level permeability, connections in the pedestrian scale mostly to
the east (with the pedestrian bridge), south (with the linear park) and west (with the gated community).
This does not happen to the north because of the null permeability and capillarity of the boulevard.
The area of stores remains orange as a semipublic space because it has not been studied in detail.
The green (mixed uses) colored areas have grown, nevertheless complexity bubbles similar to those
of the control area appear in the center of the project proposed (compare images) but the rest of the
development is far different.

Study case 6: linear park

There is also the case of the linear park between the Industria del Hierro and the shopping mall and
gated community that shows a perceivable change in transversal complexity when loading the inter-
vention in the GIS model. (Ill. 216, 217)

The two cartograms above show the difference in transversal connectivity before and after the inter-
vention.
In the “before” cartogram (f 216), the linear park doesn’t exist in terms of pedestrian connectivity due
mostly to the lack of permeability of both sides of the Epigmenio González avenue.

When the project for Industria del Hierro is loaded in the model (f217), there is a rise of permeability
which immediately brings the park to life (in red) and makes it work as a connector between Industria
del Hierro and the new commercial mall. We can appreciate how different the situation is in the case
of the relationship with the gated community. Since its southern wall has remained massive, perme-
ability on this side of the avenue has not changed, accusing the isolation of gated communities to the
northwest and southeast at once.

254 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

This cartogram gives a good clue of the uses that the GIS model could have when evaluating transver-
sal connectivity in interventions of urban design.

6 Conclusions of this chapter

Transversal connectivity cartograms are a point of departure tool that has to be further developed and
proved in different cases and under different circumstances; however, within the range of our research,
we can draw some conclusions so far:

What cartograms are and what can they be

Cartograms are not direct or “literal” maps of networks; they are rather a graphic manifestation of the
potential of interactions that can be generated in an urban network. What cartograms show is patterns
of complexity, generated by the interaction of people with the urban space; the constant interaction
between patterns and structure, as discussed in chapter 2.

Cartograms might be new tools for decision making actors in the form-giving process of a city, by
helping them understand, by the use of analogies with actual urban spaces, the features that a given
decision will probably detonate in the urban space. This tool can add power to a trend of increasing
the participation of public in urban planning and design and bring more fundaments to public deci-
sion making.

A new avenue for research

The study of patterns of complexity is a new avenue for research.
We need to further learn how to interpret cartograms as medical scientists have learned to interpret
x-ray, ultrasonic and tomographic images. This will only happen with practice and its documentation.
The combination of the visualization of patterns and complexity and the anticipated materialization
(design) of a given urban intervention has enormous potential in the emerging processes of spatial
planning and design; this combination can and should be tested in “mixed-scanning” processes,
where an interaction exists between top-down established visualization of patterns of organization
(planning) and bottom-up emergent urban projects (design).

Patterns of complexity
New Urbanism advocates and practitioners have been using spatial and formal patterns to formulate
codes for giving form to “new” urban configurations…
The use of complexity pattern maps as the transversal connectivity cartograms presented here opens
the possibility of incorporating new exciting approaches to the use of patterns in urban design.
Transversal connectivity cartograms can spatialize graphically patterns of complexity; in our case, pat-
terns of transversal connectivity. These patterns can and should be also incorporated in the formula-
tion of codes that take into account the organization of complexity.
Transversal connectivity cartograms are in a way, maps of the genetic code of cities; they can be used
as evaluators of the quality of space that a given intervention will deliver, by comparing the patterns
obtained by a proposal with the patterns obtained from the study of areas with desirable connectivity,
vitality, accessibility, and a number of other features.

Chapter 9: Design and Application of a Tool for Observation and Assessment of Transversal Connectivity 255
256 Connectivity-oriented urban projects
10 Conclusions and perspectives

The following conclusions are referred to their corresponding chapters in this thesis

2
Fragmentation of the city structures has contributed to fragmentation in the patterns of organiza-
tion of our society. Hence, economic polarisation, social segregation and environmental disruption are
causes but at the same time effects, of a cyclic process between structures and patterns.

The central enterprise of current economic theory and practice – the striving for continuing, undif-
ferentiated economic growth – is clearly unsustainable, since unlimited expansion on a finite planet
can only lead to catastrophe. Indeed at the turn of this century, it has become abundantly clear that
our own economic activities are harming the biosphere and human life in ways that may soon become
irreversible (Brown, 2001; Gore, 1992; Hawken, 1993).

The critical issue is not technology, but politics and human values. And these human values can change:
they are not natural laws. The same electronic networks of financial and informational flows could have
other values built into them (Capra, 2002 p.141).

Connecting the spatially fragmented entities can help reduce fragmentation in social organisation
patterns. When fragmentation is the first preliminary conclusion of observation and interpretation, it
is time to seriously consider connecting as a strategy for city planning and design.

New scientific knowledge is here to orient connection processes in the form of the emerging science
of networks. It is time to counteract the patterns of fragmentation of our society, by introducing new
kinds of connection in our structures.

3
Urban projects are concrete interventions in the urban space. They can belong to a given scale, but
affect the others, since scales are interconnected in the complex system of the city.

Urban projects may be an instrument to balance top-down planning with bottom-up emergence in
the city’s processes.

Currently, urban projects are seen as real estate and/ or infrastructure developments but may be
become wider in scope and considered with a multi-scalar reach; they can improve governance by
involving top-down and bottom-up processes into a concrete common vision developed by design.

Chapter 10: Conclusions and perspectives 257

 Urban projects can help harmonizing urban form from economic, social and environmental points of
view, besides of the spatial; they are a tool for strategic construction of the city, especially when con-
ceived networked.

Urban projects are subject of concrete assessment and are a most useful for taking decisions (by con-
sensus).

Urban projects can be designed as roadspace interfaces to improve connectivity. Actors playing a role
in the processes of urban projects can belong either to a “closed” model or to an “open” one, depend-
ing on the degree of participation of the community in such processes. The more participation in a
project, the more pertinence the project will have in the community.

In this research, the concept of transversal urban project evolved to transversal connection and the
concept of dynamic scales evolved to the concept of connected scales or holarchy. A transversal con-
nection is that which connects a system to a smaller scale. In the city, transversal connections can be
either of mobility (transversal accessibility) or of information (transversal permeability).

What to connect?
Mobility networks.
Fragmentation observed and interpreted above suggest intervention by connecting the mobility
networks, starting by the smallest scale (Salingaros 1998), growing in connectivity by increasing the
quantity and quality of connections in the same small scale, and connecting it as well with larger scales
which in turn will develop more connectivity. Increasing connectivity means better mobility condi-
tions and most of all, better accessibility. These three phenomena are themselves intertwined as well
as with spatial, social and economic phenomena that we cannot dissociate again.

Car and pedestrian.

While the physical relation of the automobile with its user is scientifically studied by ergonomics in
industrial design, little is known of scientific studies about the relationships of cars and the pedestrian
user of the city. This is a new, urban ergonomics field yet to be connected in the near future.

Disciplines.
For centuries, our understanding of reality has been divided into a number of isolated compartments
that sometimes relate to each other. This compartmentalisation of knowledge has contributed to bring
fragmentation to our structures. In recent times, new exciting connections between disciplines have
appeared shedding new light into knowledge. Physicists are now exploring biology (Capra), mathema-
ticians are building scientific theories of the built environment and emergence synchronisation (Sal-
ingaros, Strogatz), sociologists and industrial engineers are helping to build up a science of networks
(Watts, Dupuy) and economists are using networks and IT as tools for designing the city of the possible
future (Drewe). Like Sue Roaf once said: “it is so enriching to step one foot out of your discipline”.

258 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Scales.
Disciplinary division has taken our knowledge even to a fragmentation by scales. Sibling disciplines in
three-dimensional design are separated that way. Industrial design, architecture, urban and regional
design have many things which they can learn from each other, being a common aim of these disci-
plines the satisfaction of the needs of people (?). Connecting scales also means to regain coherence in
our environment. We have observed and interpreted a broken inverse power scaling in our cities, result
in part of the scale separation of our thoughts about them. In fact, all the scales are interconnected and
should be approached interconnected, in a dynamic scale framework.

Space and time.

Our way to look at the world has separated time from space as well. Our spatial disciplines are finally
taking time back into account and this inclusion is bringing the real needs of people back into consid-
eration (Drewe).

Economic cycles.
In our globalized reality, these cycles are also fragmented, making the gap between rich and poor
wider every time. Network thinking and furthermore, network science can help us to connect eco-
nomic cycles, providing their proven feature of behaving in networks with emergent properties, This
issue is related with the growth of our cities (or should I say built environment) and can be connected
up to the spaces of mobility, where investments are currently sectorially focused.

Social groups.
Our cities have become fragmented as well in the sense of separating social groups. This is by no
means a new feature; social segregation in the city has existed ever since they emerged (Kostof, 1991).
But the difference is that the modern city has less and less spaces for social interaction. Public spaces
of the pre-modern city worked well as mixers of social groups, but public spaces in the modern and
post-modern city have lost this quality.

Cultural and natural environment.

Another point of fragmentation is this; artificial or cultural built environment had been separated from
nature. A heritage of linear, reductionist thinking, modern built environment has been constructed
as if natural resources were unlimited and as if wastes could be freely released into the biosphere.
Unfortunately, this paradigm was in its peak when most of the urban built environment in the world
was built. Civilisation is starting to react to this misfeat. The point is to reconnect nature and culture in
our built environments.

Physical and virtual structures.

Although the internet has many lessons to be learned by spatial planners and designers, just a few con-
temporary spatial planner-thinkers have proposed the serious consideration of this network for study
to adequate the practice of the urban form-giving (Mitchell, Drewe). New scientific discoveries about
the way the internet is organised, concepts as growth, preferential attachment and fitness (Barabási, et
al.) suggest new avenues in this connection with city design and planning, especially with the spaces
of mobility.

Where to connect?
Global and local processes currently belong to separated networks. While global capital acts in local
scenarios, its performance as a welfare generator is poor, as poor are the benefits local structures get

Chapter 10: Conclusions and perspectives 259

 from global investments. Social disconnection also is present between global and local patterns of
organisation, a consequence of economic as well as technological socio-fragmentation, mainly con-
cerned with mobility and information divides all over the world. Global environmental processes are as
well cause and outcome of local patterns; conceptual connection in this relationship is also network-
oriented.

Fragmented tissues of our cities are another field to study and connect. The continuity of them has been
broken by infrastructure that has become structure and sometimes suprastructure which serves only a
part of the total. When an infrastructure is introduced to connect on a given layer of the city, there is a
consequent disconnection in another (Graham and Marvin 2001). New forms of connecting infrastruc-
ture to the whole are needed and this concerns mainly infrastructures for mobility which are expected
to be the more physically impacting in cities in the years to come.
Connections are to be made where overimpositions of infrastructure have occurred. At different scales,
the spaces of mobility have been overimposed to formerly existing structures of the city or their
imposition prevents the city structure to evolve with a natural order. Overimpositions of structures for
commercial communications (advertisement) are also subject of intervention to be re-conceptualised
and connected to the whole. Overimpositions occur in the modern city where the car has been privi-
leged over pedestrian space; where global structures have been given priority over local ones; where
infrastructures of mobility of people, goods, information, energy and resources dissect tissues. In fact,
opportunities to connect are everywhere.

How to connect?
As an architect, my first answer is “through urban projects”, but in fact I think the answer lays in a team-
work between urban projects and urban planning, a combination of bottom-up and top-down proc-
esses to make interventions in the city. The issue here is to find this “third way” suggested by Salingaros
as a balanced approach. Urban projects emerge in every urban scale, not only as large-scaled-inter-
ventions, thus, they come from either top-down or bottom-up methods, depending of their origin. In
the same sense, planning can be top-down planning as in the master planning tradition, or bottom-
up as in the strategic planning school of thought. I think that the combination is adequate when the
inductive approach of urban projects is well connected to the deductive approach of planning.

Connections can be fully integrated (Capra 2002) when linking simultaneously into actions process
and meaning (communication actions), process and patterns (strategic actions) and process and struc-
ture (instrumental actions).

Spaces of mobility, while causing fragmentation in the urban realm with their common longitudinal
conception, provide an opportunity for an instrumental approach to connection. Increasing connec-
tivity in the city can result in better mobility conditions and most of all in better accessibility in the
city, not only from spatial but from the economic, social and environmental perspectives. Increasing
connectivity in the city is thus a step forward their sustainability.

Being the spaces of mobility a strategic crucible of disciplines, fields of study, and interesting people,
transport, information, the study of the ways we consider mobility is relevant in the measure it can
provide us with new concepts of what, where and how to connect.

260 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

One of the most important connections to be fulfilled is that linking the people-mobility network
with the information-mobility network; the contemporary spaces of mobility for people and the fast
emerging new information technologies.

New and exciting perspectives for connections appear in our time, with the simultaneous emergence
of the information technologies, scientific principles of urban structures and discoveries on the organ-
ized complexity of networks.

5
A number of variables established by modern urbanism that correspond to the ‘zonal’ approach to the
city study, such as density and land use, are being de facto modified by the emerging network para-
digm and might be soon modified de jure in the planning legal framework.

Zonal urbanism has considered density as a static factor when reality has proven that densities in the
contemporary city are variable while related to time. The large monofunctional housing zones present
different densities depending on the time of the day and the day of the week. In the network para-
digm, densities might be taken in account but always in relation to other variables (time for instance)
and again, as a set of variables, as a dynamic system, to study the city.

With the emergence of the network as a paradigm, the scientific study of the city has now to produce
new tools for observation and assessment of the organized complexity phenomenon. Without dis-
qualifying the tools that have been used in the past, but pondering their reaches, now new tools and
methods have to be developed to match the theoretical advancements of the “new” science of net-
works. As Kuhn has stated, moving from one paradigm to another always causes frictions but we are
fortunate to live in a time in which a major change in the paradigms of the science of the form-giving
of the urban space is happening; the change will certainly bring new challenges and opportunities.

We have to point out again that the graphic interface of the GIS used in this research is a tool to observe
connectivity and in a way, give it form, as in the case of the images used in medical science to observe
the conditions of a complex system. A graphic interface that expresses connectivity can be a useful
tool for taking decisions in specific urban projects oriented to improve it. Of course, connectivity has
been studied here as of mobility and information in the urban space and as a preliminary conclusion,
other spatial and non-spatial variables can be observed and assessed in the city through a graphic
interface within principles and rules of complex systems.

What in the zonal paradigm was considered periphery, in the new network paradigm can be consid-
ered as a “hole”, for its disconnection from a given system.
Through the study of networks and with tools as the Geographic Information Systems, the conditions
for connectivity can be observed and assessed, recognizing that they take place in the environment of
organized complexity that a city is.

Chapter 10: Conclusions and perspectives 261

 6
We need to find a process that harmonizes both the top-down and the bottom-up approaches to
spatial design in the city. Connectivity oriented urban projects might be this conciliating procedure
for re-building the splintered city of the 20th century and to start constructing the city of a new mil-
lennium.

What makes a system a system, and not a simple collection of elements, are the connections and inter-
actions between its components, as well as the effect these linkages have on its behaviour. Connectiv-
ity is therefore an issue for the agenda of spatial design for the upcoming decades, if we are to advance
to a more sustainable civilisation. If conveniently oriented to connectivity, urban projects can make
true a different possible future available for the city.

Urban projects are catalysts of the configuration of structures and patterns of the city. In the last 30
years, in Querétaro, these catalysts have been oriented to sprawl, since this is a convenient model for
speculation with land.

7
The specific form of projects is useful to determine quantitatively some features of it. However, we
think that in order to assess network features of the set of projects, as node density, a fundamental
ingredient of complexity, in the neighborhood and larger scales, only the program is relevant.

The specific form of the project is relevant in smaller scales, but it did not have significant incidence at
the neighborhood scale in which the graphic GIS interface is presented in chapter 9.

8
Facing a network of key connectivity problems, a network of urban projects and, even more, a network
of key strategies have been juxtaposed.

The problem of fragmentation (as we have adapted it from articles prior to this work) is spatial but also
social, economic and environmental, and is juxtaposed against a key strategy of spatial accessibility to
information and to decision-making.

The problem of the impracticality of the economic model is juxtaposed against a strategy of competi-
tiveness.

The problem of empty simplicity with which sprawl grows, is juxtaposed against the key strategy of
organizing complexity.

There is much work to be done in order to change the growth paradigm of the built environment to the
reality of the true urban fabric with the three Aristotelian characteristics of the classic city: size, density
and heterogeneity, plus a fourth fundamental: organized complexity.

262 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

9
Transversal connectivity cartograms are a point of departure tool that has to be further developed and
proved in different cases and under different circumstances; however, within the range of our research,
we can draw some conclusions so far:

What cartograms are and what can they be

Cartograms are not direct or “literal” maps of networks; they are rather a graphic manifestation of the
potential of interactions that can be generated in an urban network. What cartograms show is patterns
of complexity, generated by the interaction of people with the urban space; the constant interaction
between patterns and structure, as discussed in chapter 2.

Cartograms might be new tools for decision making actors in the form-giving process of a city, by
helping them understand, by the use of analogies with actual urban spaces, the features that a given
decision will probably detonate in the urban space. This tool can add power to a trend of increasing
the participation of public in urban planning and design and bring more fundaments to public deci-
sion making.

Perspectives
The next step to be taken in the use of patterns of complexity to assess connectivity and other complex
variables is to put the model into practice and document such practice. It is important to obtain results
in several different conditions and to have the chance to compare them.

As for the application of this work, what one can see is that there is a possibility of introducing a new
instrument for spatial planning and design within a complexity paradigm. This kind of tool can con-
tribute with more elements for the decision making actors to act in favour of a more in-many-senses-
connected built environment.

The study of patterns of complexity is a new avenue for research.

We need to further learn how to interpret cartograms as medical scientists have learned to interpret
x-ray, ultrasonic and tomographic images. This will only happen with practice and its documentation.

The combination of the visualization of patterns and complexity and the anticipated materialization
(design) of a given urban intervention has enormous potential in the emerging processes of spatial
planning and design; this combination can and should be tested in “mixed-scanning” processes,
where an interaction exists between top-down established visualization of patterns of organization
(planning) and bottom-up emergent urban projects (design).

The use of complexity pattern maps as the transversal connectivity cartograms presented here opens
the possibility of incorporating new exciting approaches to the use of patterns in urban design.

Transversal connectivity cartograms can spatialize graphically patterns of complexity; in our case, pat-
terns of transversal connectivity. These patterns can and should be also incorporated in the formula-
tion of codes that take into account the organization of complexity.

Chapter 10: Conclusions and perspectives 263

 Transversal connectivity cartograms are in a way, maps of the genetic code of cities; they can be used
as evaluators of the quality of space that a given intervention will deliver, by comparing the patterns
obtained by a proposal with the patterns obtained from the study of areas with desirable connectivity,
vitality, accessibility, and a number of other features.

264 Connectivity-oriented urban projects

Chapter 10: Conclusions and perspectives 265
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References Index 275