IMPULSE DEVELOPMENT OF CITIES CAUSED BY THE RANGE OF CERTAIN INFRASTRUCTURAL FACTORS. FORMS AND EXPERIENCE

The issue of impulse development of cities caused by different infrastructural factors is considered.

It has been determined that rapid development of urban planning structure which occurred over a short period of time can be viewed as an effective urban planning impulse, with the exception of the following conditions, when they: a) did not lead to sustainable results, b) did not solve the basic problems of life support; c) originated from the modernist legacy of total urban planning, which considered the possibility of creating a large urban structure from scratch, based on a one-time master plan).

 According to the history of their development, urban structures fall into two major categories: evolutionary and impulse-based. Evolutionary category includes the cities which have developed gradually, without any significant spurts from the original core, through the long-term accumulation of complications. While the cities, which fall into the impulse-based category are characterized by a stage of sharp acceleration of development or a kind of a growth spurt, followed by either stabilization or a relative slowdown. Given the task set in this study, this category of the cities was selected as the object of further consideration.

Based on the analysis of the source base, four basic factors of historical urban planning have been outlined, which can be considered as impulse factors in the form of clearly expressed changes - infrastructural, demographic, economic, myth-making.

 Taking Tenochtitlan, Stockholm and Alexandria as the example, the content and functional structure of infrastructural impulse changes have been outlined. By these we mean rethinking of life support systems, which leads to sharp population growth and employment diversification. To become a ‘growth spurt’ factor, such changes must contain a number of special qualities: convenience, accessibility and uniqueness. Convenience is the difference in the use of infrastructural benefits between the locality in which the impulse change takes place and other similar cities. Accessibility means the ability to use (access) the infrastructural benefits by as many residents as possible. While uniqueness stands for a feature or set of infrastructure features that are notably absent in the cities of the competing area.