Requalifying the Built Environment: Challenges and Responses. By Roderick J. Lawrence, Hülya Turgut, Peter Kellett, Hogrefe, 2012; 232 pages. Price: 54,95€, ISBN 978-0-88937-430-0

The following paragraphs are reproduced from the website of the publisher [1]:

In recent decades, significant financial and professional resources have been invested in urban regeneration, housing renovation, and the revitalization of old neighborhoods, with considerable impacts on the social, physical, and economic structure of cities and their inhabitants. The first objective of this volume is to present the key issues related to these changes, which were discussed at an international symposium of experts organized by the International Association for People-Environment Studies and Housing and CSBE (Culture and Space in the Built Environment) Networks in Istanbul. The second objective is to show how concepts and methods in the field of people-environment studies can be successfully applied to study complex questions related to the revitalization of the built environment, both at the small scale of specific buildings and at the larger scale of neighborhoods.

The contributions in this volume are centered around the following main themes:

• Key issues concerning heritage and cultural identity
• The institutional, economic, and political contexts of revitalization
• Implementation and how to address the key challenges

This volume will be useful to researchers, graduate students, teachers, and professional practitioners in housing design and construction, the maintenance and upgrading of existing buildings and urban areas, conservation management, and the broad field of housing studies. The book is pertinent to people trained in architecture, urban design, environmental psychology, urban sociology, social policy studies, urban planning, human geography, and building and landscape conservation.

Table of Contents

• Foreword vii
• Introduction 1

  • Urban Requalification, Renewal, and Regeneration
  • Roderick J. Lawrence, Hulya Turgut, and Peter Kellett 3
• I Heritage and Cultural Identity: Key Issues 11

  • The Heritage of the Built Environment as Development: Paradigms, Possibilities and Problems Gregory Ashworth 13
  • Historic City Centres as Catalysts for Wider Sustainable Urban Regeneration Amira M. Elnokaly and Ahmed B. Elseragy 29
  • Case Studies in Renovation and Urban Regeneration: Learning by Doing Rolf Johansson 51
• II Challenges of the Institutional, Economic, and Political Context 67

  • Ideologies of Gentrification and the Right to the City Loretta Lees 69
  • Social and Spatial Re-Structuring in Inner-City Residential Areas: The Case of Fener-Balat, Istanbul Hulya Turgut and Begum Sismanyazici 93
  • Who Won the Battle of Beirut Downtown? Revisiting the Crisis of Cultural Identity in Rehabilitating Post-War Beirut Tarek Saad Ragab 115
• III Implementation Addressing Key Challenges 133

  • Requalifying Aging Suburbs to Counter Urban Sprawl: The Contribution of GIRBa to Cultural Sustainability Carole Despre´s, Andre´e Fortin, and Genevie`ve Vachon 135
  • Resident Led Regeneration: Proposals for Large Scale Self-Build Development in London Levent Kerimol 161
  • Social Urbanism: Integrated and Participatory Urban Upgrading in Medellin, Colombia Camilo Calderon 179
  • Empowering Local Communities to Revitalise Old Quarters: Cases From Egypt Maye Yehia 199
• Epilogue 221
• Requalifying the Built Environment: Moving Forward Roderick J. Lawrence 223
• Authors 227
• Index 229

* Editor’s Note: The brief summary and the contents of the books are reported as provided by theauthors or the publishers. Authors and publishers are encouraged to send review copies of their recent books of potential interest to readers of Sustainability to the Publisher (Dr. Shu-Kun Lin,Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), Kandererstrasse 25, CH-4057 Basel,Switzerland; Tel. +41-61-683-77-34; Fax: +41-61-302-89-18; E-Mail: [email protected]). Some bookswill be offered to the scholarly community for the purpose of preparing full-length reviews.