Peripheral Centralities

The Lost and Past Urbanity of the Suburbs

Nicholas A. Phelps, Roger Keil, Paul Maginn

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040363959
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

The term 'peripheral centralities' may seem something of an oxymoron and yet the spatial peripheries of cities have often been more central to urban development processes than is appreciated. To better understand the nature of peripheral centrality, Peripheral Centralities: The Lost and Past Urbanity of the Suburbs brings together a wide variety of examples of lost and forgotten peripheral centralities of different sizes, purpose, geographical location, and political complexion, dating from the first decades of the twentieth century to the present day. Following the introduction, two chapters provide broad overviews of peripheral centralities in international and national systems of centralities. The next four chapters look at plans from settings as different as Dublin and Shanghai that, for one reason or another, failed to materialize. The following eight chapters each describes cases where projects have been realized, ranging from peripheral townships in England to a Chinese steel city. To conclude the book, the editors highlight the themes revealed in the foregoing chapters and consider the part an appreciation of peripheral centralities might play in the development of urban theory from the outside in.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Editors and Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction Peripheral Centralities: The Lost and Past of the Urbanity of the Suburbs
• Chapter 1 Centres in the Metropolitan Periphery: A Spatial Planning History
• Chapter 2 Soviet Sputnik Towns: The Past of a Sustainable Urban Future? Remaking Periphery through Distributing Centrality
• Chapter 3 Pipedream or Growth Area Benchmark? Berwick's Metrotown Plan
• Chapter 4 Flying Boats, Garden Suburbs, Oil Refineries and Motorways - Exploring the Forgotten Twentieth-Century Plans for Dublin Bay
• Chapter 5 'Metropolitan Adelaide's Unique Opportunity': Charles Reade's Plan of Adelaide and Suburbs (1917)
• Chapter 6 Informal Centralities against Fascism: Popular Urbanization in Madrid, 1940s-1970s
• Chapter 7 The Greater Shanghai Plan (1927-1937): An Unfulfilled Urban Dream
• Chapter 8 War, Military Settlements, and Planetary (Sub)Urbanization
• Chapter 9 Exploring the Emergence of Peripheral Centralities in Bengaluru: The Case of Electronics City
• Chapter 10 What Peripheral Centrality Does to the City: The 'EUR Neighbourhood' in Rome, Italy
• Chapter 11 'A Bright New World of Convenience, Efficiency, and Plenty': The Incorporation and Dissolution of Peripheral Mass Public Housing in in Newcastle and Dundee, 1960s to 1990s
• Chapter 12 The Social Ambitions and Failures of Architecture in Oslo's New Towns of 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s
• Chapter 13 Wuhan's Red Steel City: The Waning Centrality of an Industrial Satellite Town?
• Chapter 14 Lost and Peripheral Centralities in the Post-Colony: Lessons from West Africa
• Conclusion Histories beyond 'Methodological Cityism'
• Index